


Tenta

by Chubbidust



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Human To Inkling, Inkling On Earth, Memes, just warning you now, memes will be in here too don't even try to stop me, more tags will come the longer this story gets, sarcastic assholes, starts as a sickfic but then It Is Not, this is all a big self insert guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2018-10-25 17:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chubbidust/pseuds/Chubbidust
Summary: William was a teenage human boy that didn't stick out much in society. If he disappeared, he wouldn't leave much of a footprint at all. On one afternoon, a little after William gets home from school to begin the first hours of summer vacation, an inkling flies out of his television and crashes him to the ground. That inkling now has to live with him and his kinda odd and kinda normal family and pets, but they're all pretty cool with it. However, unbeknownst to everyone in that household, a threat was brewing and would soon wreck havoc upon them and truly shake their blood to the core. Many issues will come to light in the world and some people you thought were okay, may be not. Tears will be shed, relationships will be questioned, and everything will feel hellish. In other words, this story features teenagers and it gets kiiiinda dramatic.TLDR: It's an 'Inkling On Earth' story but with a hopefully original twist.(Story takes place in between first and second games and contains elements from both.)





	1. oh no

**Author's Note:**

> William is 15 years old, isn't very social, and is a couch potato. He tries to be rational when he can, and while he's not very good at making friends, he has a lot of acquaintances that view him in a positive light.  
> Alyssa is 14 years old, is very social, and is also a bit of a couch potato but definitely not to the same level as William. She doesn't put up with much bullshit, and only makes the best of friends...In her eyes, anyway.  
> Terrell is 25 years old, and a bit on the reserved side. In a conversation he'll wait his turn, and will always try to be respectful to others. Sometimes his patience will run thin, however, as raising your siblings since you were 10 can do that to you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh.

Lazily swinging open the front door to the house, I grumpily stepped into the room, slipping off my muddy shoes at the entrance and closing the door with the heel of my foot. The backpack slung on my shoulder was thrown to the floor in front of the couch, that of which I immediately stumbled to and flopped down upon, one arm draping off. With my face buried into one of the cushions of the couch, I let out an exhausted moan, having just gotten home after the last day of school, finally on summer break.

“Welcome home, dickface.” I heard someone call from upstairs in a sarcastic tone.

Briefly lifting my head out of the soft cushion, I watched my younger sister quickly step down the stairs, loudly smacking on a ham sandwich she must’ve made before I arrived. You know she’s despicable since she’s using wheat bread, the worst kind of bread to ever exist. I rolled my eyes at her comment, burying my face right back into the couch cushion, not wanting to deal with her torturous personality.

She laughed, taking another smug bite out of her sandwich before saying with a stuffed mouth, “I made sure to fart in that cushion a couple times because I just  _ knew _ you would come home and shove your face in it. Be careful with your daily habits, dear brother of mine.”

I immediately rolled myself off the couch and fell to the floor before straining to stand back up and back away from it as if it were a rabid tiger. “Alright, cool, now I gotta burn my face and the couch cushion. And maybe this whole couch while I’m at it. And then the house. Thanks, lil sis.”

She snorted, finishing the last of her sandwich and nonchalantly brushing the crumbs off her fingers onto the carpet floor. “I was kidding, even if I did bless the couch with my body’s gases I wouldn’t tell you. I’d just silently laugh at you from afar, waiting until you realized exactly what had transpired.” She eventually walked in front of me, where I got to have a look at her current outfit.

She was a decently dark girl, just light enough for people to instantly notice the freckles on her face. She had round, golden glasses that flashed in my eyes occasionally when she walked in the sun, a pain in the ass they were. Her hair, dyed a navy blue, was tied into a very loose and scraggly bun, with stray hairs falling out close to the sides of her face. Her outfit had stayed consistent throughout the school year, a crop top and ripped jeans. The terrifying thing about it was she wore the same outfit even through the coldest days of winter, she was an unstoppable beast...like a yeti or something. She had no shoes on and only socks, which meant she was willing to walk into the kitchen and get her socks wet with water that was “accidentally” spilled on the floor, otherwise known as the worst feeling known to all mankind.

I raised a brow, “For a fourteen year old, you sure do sass like you’re a seventeen year old dropout, Alyssa.” I flopped back onto the couch face first, burying my head in the cushion once again. It’s a wonder I put up with her somehow.

The girl, now dubbed Alyssa, crossed her arms, “For a fifteen year old, you sure do fail your classes like a six year old who eats glue, Will.” She then shrugged her shoulders, walking over to the TV against the wall and pressing the ‘on’ button.

I opened my eyes and exasperatedly threw one arm into the air, “You get an F one time! One time! I’ll have you know that the teacher of that class was the most bullshit teacher I’ve ever had. Everyone hated her guts, even the other goddamn teachers! I’m very sure she had something against me. One time she gave me detention for sighing, ‘Lyss.  _ Sighing! _ You can’t tell me I earned that grade.”

“Yeah maybe that,  _ ooooor _ you just weren’t paying attention in her class, and didn’t know the material, and therefore failed that class like a goldfish in a running marathon.” Ignoring my scoff at her comment, Alyssa turned on the Wii U, tossing the gamepad to me with a lazy hand, “Play some shit, I’m bored but I don’t like exerting effort.”

I quickly sat up and fumbled with the controller as it fell into my hands, before gripping it and managing to  _ not _ let it fall to the floor like the thousands of times before, one of those times causing the screen to crack ever so slightly but not ruining it entirely. Squinting at the screen, I could see that the game  _ Splatoon _ was starting up, the sound of drums coming in through the speakers. I looked over at Alyssa with an unimpressed expression, to where she started getting defensive.

“What? This game is adorable! I’d take cute little squid people over Call of Duty or whatever any day.” She defensively shrugged her shoulders, “Plus, I love it when people destroy you and you get so irritated when they taunt you after you die, I pull out my phone each and every time that happens, even when you don’t know I’m there.”

“Wow, gee, thanks,” I grumbled under my breath, before hitting the requested buttons to start the game. The Squid Sisters did their usual newscast, an event many Splatoon players were tired of. Speeding through their scripted phrases, I got out of the news event and pressed the ‘Octo Valley’ button on my gamepad. The screen went to black, a loading patch of ink swirling in the right bottom corner.

“So you’re facing octos today? Go figure, no good footage for me today,” Alyssa whined, folding her arms against her chest and falling back into the couch’s cushions in disappointment. I laughed at her misfortune, before looking up at the screen.

...Oh.

“...Whaaa?” I said intelligently to myself in confusion, realizing the normal inkling, Agent 3, hadn’t sprung out of the sewer drain. Instead, a cutscene seemed to be occurring, and the setting of the scene wasn’t in the normal part of Octo Valley. Instead, it was dark with no life, no birds, nothing. There was no music either, which sent a shiver through both of our spines. All that was on the screen was a cartoon icon of an octopus in the corner with the camera looking down into a dank abyss. I saw a couple of weeds growing in between what seemed to be cracked concrete, but nothing else beyond that.

“...William, did you hack the game lately? I highly doubt this is some DLC or whatever, you’re broke as fuck and our bro only gets us stuff when we have good grades.” Alyssa stated, arms still crossed over her chest. She glanced over at me for a moment, before pushing her glasses up on her face and looking back at the screen with a pissed expression.

I furrowed my brow and disregarded her jab at me and my F’s, “You know I don’t mess with my games. I’m not sure what the hell is going on.” I looked down at the gamepad, which displayed the Octo Valley map. Thinking the game was possibly just frozen, I experimentally pressed down on one of the stages I usually would jump to when I was bored but not ready to head online. When my finger touched the screen, it played the sound that usually played when you were unable to super jump. Nothing happened on the TV, either.

I pressed the button again. And again. Over and over I frantically pressed the button,  desperate for a reaction from the game. Nothing.

“ _ What the fuck. _ ” I uttered, a cold sense of dread washing over me. Something was definitely up, I was sure of it. I urgently jammed the power button on the gamepad with my finger, hoping it’d switch off the game so it’d end this unnerving mess.

No, it did the exact opposite instead. The screen on the TV turned a blinding white, as did the gamepad. Alyssa and I quickly shielded our eyes from the light, unsure how to react in the moment. The gamepad in my hands went from room temperature to scorching hot, and I hissed sharply and dropped it to the floor, where it continued to display nothing but white.

“Okay, I’m not doing this- this creepypasta bullshit! You’re on your own, Will!” Alyssa yelped, rushing toward the door and swinging it open, charging out into the street and not looking like she intended on coming back anytime soon. Thanks, sis.

Soon, a noise was emitting from the TV screen, prompting me to stand back up and look over at the television with burning curiosity. The noise got louder and more defined, before realization hit me. The noise I was hearing was  _ screaming _ .

“ _ Holy shit _ ,” I whispered under my breath in terror, “I’m going to burn the disc and maybe even our Wii U if this is what Nintendo’s selling their consumers.” And then bash it to bits with a bat.

Before I could attempt to run and hide, something flew out of the TV and rammed straight into my face, bashing the bridge of my nose open and causing it to start bleeding heavily. Barely recovering from the hard hit, I looked down with hazy vision, recognizing that the offending object was the well known hero shot Agent 3 carried, ink leaking out of a hole that was dented into it.  _ No fucking way _ , I thought, looking back up at the screen with wide eyes, not caring if it blinded me.

The screaming was extremely loud at this point, so loud that I tried to turn down the volume with the TV remote but to no avail. In the midst of trying to make that magic happen, a second large object flew out of the screen, crashing into my face soon after the first. This one came at me with such a force it knocked me right over the couch and onto the floor. While disoriented, I tried to glance over at whatever object had crashed into me the second time, having to squint to get my vision to focus just a tad.

Ah, an inkling.

...AN INKLING. OHH  _ SHIT. _

Feeling light-headed, I could hear my sister come back in through the door and shrieking at the sight of us on the floor. I heard her quickly step around us and by the sound of her footsteps dulling, I could tell she was running upstairs to the bathroom, where the first aid supplies were kept. Dark spots creeping on the edges of my vision, I noticed the inkling in front of me shift just a tad, but seemingly not stirring.

My vision fell black and I lost consciousness, one more thought creeping into my mind.

Holy fucking  _ shit _ .


	2. Oh hey! It's an inkling.

Slowly coming to, I could feel a sharp pain in my nose and winced. Groaning softly, I slowly sat up and rubbed my eyes away their sleepiness, opening them up and looking around to find myself still on the floor of the living room. Tenderly touching the bridge of my nose, I could feel the texture of bandages, most likely placed upon it by my dickhead, caring sister. I tilted my head back and sighed through my nostrils, recalling the events that occurred before I passed the fuck out.

_ ‘Lesee _ , I thought,  _ Alyssa was a piece of shit, game console started going wild, glowing white light, screaming…. _

I jolted back to my senses, remembering exactly how I got knocked out in the first place. Looking back at the spot where I saw the inkling before I blacked out, I was alerted to find that in its place was empty carpet, but some weird purple and pink stains lingered where the inkling once laid.

“Looking for someone?” I heard Alyssa say, the girl herself coming down the stairs. I turned my head slowly to look at her as she descended. She had changed her outfit, going from her ‘fashionable’ clothing to sweatpants and a loose, oversized shirt. Looking closer I could see purple and pink marks alike to the ones on the carpet upon her garbs.

“Uh, yeah. Where’s the little squid dude?” I asked slowly, never imagining those words to ever come out of my mouth in my life.

“Our little ‘guest’ is in the guest bedroom,” she snorted at her terrible humor, “He stirred awake a little after I carried him upstairs and put up a fight, but he went right back out as soon as his head hit the pillow on the bed.”

I raised my brows, “He? How do you know it’s a he?”

Alyssa pointed to her navy blue hair and cheered in a small singsong voice, “Ponytaaaail.” She then walked over to me, examining the bandages on my nose, “I wasn’t really sure on how to patch up your already ugly face, but the bleeding stopped so I’m guessing I did something right.”

I rolled my eyes, jokingly pushing her away before standing up. I stretched my arms and rolled my neck a few times, before looking around with half lidded eyes, “Have you seen my glasses anywhere? I forgot to put them on when I was running late for the school bus this morning.”

My sister folded her arms, scoffing, before reluctantly jabbing her hand in her pocket and handing me my glasses, “I was going to put up a scheme to make you have to earn these from me, but with our current ‘situation’ I was unable to carry it out, so props to you for buying a weird ass Wii U, bro.”

I huffed, putting on the spectacles without a retaliation to say. Instead, I changed the subject. “Speaking of situations, where did all those marks come from?” I asked, pointing to her very purple and pink-splattered shirt and sweatpants. Then I looked up and and could accurately note the big pink stain on her cheek.

Alyssa shrugged her shoulders, proceeding to turn around and head towards the kitchen, “The little guy had a whole bunch of injuries on his arms and legs, and when I went to clean him up he woke up and started freaking out and snagged me in the face once,” she grabbed a rag from inside one of the drawers, “I don’t really know what was up with him, but he seemed terrified. Anyway, the cuts he had were all oozing purple shit, very goopy. The weird thing about it was that the cuts were across his ankles and his wrists, and they went  _ all _ around each limb, as if he had cuffs on or something.”

I furrowed my brow in concern and tilted my head slightly, “So you’re saying he could have purple blood or an infection of some sorts? But then again, how do you get cuts all around each of your limbs like that? That doesn’t make much sense if cuffs were involved, unless they were spiked and dug into his skin or something.”

Alyssa stepped over to the sink, turning the faucet and dampening the rag in cool water, “No, his blood isn’t purple, surprisingly. Turns out his blood is his ink color, which I imagine is pretty confusing in his world. A pretty, red-ish pink. I could tell that was his blood color when I saw it mixed in with the purple.” She squeezed the rag to let the loose water out, “From what I can tell there might’ve been some sort of cuffs around him, but the wounds on his wrists and ankles weren’t from spike punctures.”

I tapped a finger to my chin, “So why was there purple shit coming from his wounds? Is it an infection of some sort, then?” I then pointed to the wet rag she was holding, “Also, why are you getting a cold rag? What the hell kinda heist are you planning this time?”

My sister shook her head, “No. I think it actually might be Octarian ink. Y’know how purple the ink they use is? It was the same hue when I examined him. I managed to clean out most of it with a small amount of water but there’s still a little left,” she then rolled her eyes and hit me in the face with the rag, causing a small spike in pain in my nose, “And no, you shitbag. The rag is for the inkling, he’s running a bit of a fever.”

“Octarian in-What the hell kind of stupid inkling would wander their way into Octo Valley and into Octo territo….” I trailed off, realizing that the inkling we were dealing with wasn’t just any common squid kid, but Agent 3, the main avatar.

“Oh my god,” I whispered under my breath, slowly adjusting my glasses. Okay, great. We don’t have a normal inkling in our situation, of course not. We just had to get Agent 3, the S+ ninety-nine ranked squid I had fought so hard to get to. This couldn’t end well. Shaking my head, I focused on another thing she had said.

“Okay, how sick is he?”

At this she furrowed her brow, her hands making careful gestures as she thought out her sentences, “He’s actually breathing pretty shallowly, the little dude also had cheeks that seemed a little too flushed to be healthy,” she took a breath, “His temperature measured out to be a hundred ‘n five. Sweat was practically pouring down his face, Will. He might be just going through a tough illness he needs to get through his system, or something that could be deadly to an inkling. I’d suggest we call an ambulance but...y’know, with the whole ‘species not from our world’ thing.”

“Wow, okay um, wow. Way to make the situation sound like someone’s dying, ‘Lyss.” I halfheartedly joked, prompting Alyssa to punch me in the arm with a small laugh. Glad I helped make the situation less upsetting, even if the outcome could be grave.

“I’m gonna go up and put the rag on his forehead, you should be useful and get a glass of water in case he wakes up.” She instructed with a small grin on her face, heading out of the kitchen doorway.

I decided to make the smarter decision and grabbed a thermal water bottle instead, filling it up using the dispenser on the fridge door and twisting the top shut. I tilted it upside down to make sure it was water tight and then set on my way upstairs.

When I got to the guest room, I could see the inkling on the bed clearly. Sure enough, the guy was knocked out with his head on the pillow. I was in awe to see that it was the exact inkling I remembered playing as just yesterday when the game was working properly. I didn’t care enough about the customization options to choose a specific look so I just went with whatever.

The top of his head was wrapped with a bandage, a large section of pink seeping through. I grimaced, guessing the impact of his not-so-graceful landing must’ve caused that. His tan skin on his cheeks was flushed a deep red-ish pink, too vibrant and noticeable to be considered healthy. Beads of sweat were dotted across his forehead, slipping down to the sheets resting below him. The mask around his eyes made it hard to see his eyelids, but looking closer I could see they were tightly shut. His mouth was open and producing a soft and slightly pitiful panting noise, the three fangs that all inklings had were visible, white as a marshmallow. Looking over the inkling, I guessed that he was around five feet tall at most. 

I looked over his clothing next, all he had on was a black, long sleeved shirt and presumably the body suit he wore underneath it. Glancing at his wrists and ankles, I could see gauze wrapped around them, a small hint of pink peeking through it as well. Looking over one side of the bed, I could see a small chair with a pile of the inkling’s clothes, the hero suit gear with his shoes.

“Hmmm.”

“AH-Shit!” I jumped out of my skin at the sound of Alyssa humming, not even noticing that she was standing right on the other side of the bed. She snickered at my reaction but used a hand gesture to remind me to keep it down.

“I was gonna go ahead and put the rag on him but I think the black shirt and bodysuit might be making him too hot.” She whispered to me, juggling the damp rag in her hands.

“What do you want  _ me  _ to do? I’m not stripping him, that’s weird.” I muttered, awkwardly shoving my hands into my pockets.

My sister scoffed, “Please, stripping him should be the least of your concerns. Either way, I don’t think the extra layers are gonna be doing him any good, so we’ll have to get them off.”

I gave her a strange look, “...Even the bodysuit? What if he’s goin’ commando? I swear to God I will up and leave this house if I catch my eye on any sort of squid dick.”

“Oh my  _ God.  _ I’m ‘boutta up and smack you, this poor little guy’s running a fever and you’re worried about seeing a little more than what you’d like so you’re willing to potentially let him overheat? Really?”

“Okay, well, you don’t have to make me seem selfish simply because I don’t wanna see a squid dick.” I hissed, “They could -I dunno- look weird.”

Alyssa groaned, “Who cares about the dick? We just gotta take his fucking clothes off so he doesn’t get in an even worse condition! Can you at least help me get the shirt off without disrupting the bandages too much?”

“If I-”

“ _ You won’t see a fucking dick if you’re just taking off the shirt you ignorant fucking sour lemon. _ ” She snapped, clearly not fucking around.

I flinched at Alyssa’s tone, understanding that if I said something else smart she could potentially pick me up and throw me out the guest bedroom window. Literally.

Huffing through my nose, I stepped closer to the inkling and gently grabbed the bottom of his black shirt, slowly beginning to pull it over his head. I watched as my sister put the damp rag on the edge of the bed and then followed my footsteps on the other side of it, the both of us working together to get the shirt off of him without waking him up.

We had just gotten his tentacles through when suddenly he blinked awake, seeming to be extremely drowsy. My breath hitched and I looked up at Alyssa, who was staring back at me with wide eyes. Together we both sat in tense silence and watched as the inkling looked around with squinted eyes, at one point them focusing on me for around ten seconds, before he yawned and nestled himself into the pillows surrounding his body, going right back to sleep.

After a solid minute of him going back to sleep, we both exhaled in relief and continued our work, finally pulling the shirt off his body. The change wasn’t instantaneous, though I could tell that without the shirt the inkling was gonna be less hot.

“Okay, okay. That wasn’t disastrous. That could’ve been a lot worse.” My sister reassured, though it seemed more directed at herself than me.

“Thank. Fucking. God.” I wheezed, the stress of the situation had made my anxiety go straight through the roof. “I’m so fucking glad he was half asleep, it would’ve sucked to have him wake up to two total strangers stripping off his shirt.”

“Well, we’re more than strangers. To him, anyway. We’re like...martians.” Alyssa murmured, glancing over the inkling and trying to find where the zipper of his body suit was.

I watched her try to find it after a moment and then quickly spoke up, “We’re less like martians and more like an odd alien race that tried to take on a similar form to him but always somehow came off a little off anyway.” Then, after a moment, “Also, his zipper may be on his back.”

Alyssa huffed and crossed her arms, “Yeah, you’re right. It probably is. It’d be a waste of effort to try and unzip it without him waking up. Also, what the genuine  _ fuck, _ Will?”

I quickly tried to defend myself, “Y’know! Like those cartoons! With the aliens that’d come and be all like ‘hey hey we wanna make peace ‘n shit’ and they’d say that they took on forms to look like us with their advanced ass technology or something.”

My sister rolled her eyes and then picked up the rag from the edge of the bed and gently laid it on top of the inkling’s forehead. Giving him another look, I could tell that he was definitely feeling better after removing the shirt and putting the wet rag on his head. His breathing had calmed down and he looked like he was in a pretty deep sleep.

After a moment of the two of us looking at him, Alyssa groaned and rubbed her cheeks with her hands, dragging them down her face.

“I’m gonna have to change his fucking bandageees…” She whined, “He might wake up if I try to change his bandageees….”

I snorted, “Worst case scenario is that he’ll wake up and scream for like, ten seconds. I highly doubt a tiny dude like him would be able to cause significant damage to you.”

My sister rubbed the back of her neck in an awkward manner, “Maybe. I dunno, I just feel like that while inklings may look defenseless and weak, they may actually be pretty hardy? I mean, who knows what they evolved to do when in a situation involving predator and prey.”

“You take a long look at our rising generation and tell me how threatening they are, and then check back with me later.”

Alyssa laughed, adjusting her glasses, “Okay, yeah, I getcha. Inklings probably  _ would  _ just be on their phones and can probably only do as much as we can. Besides that whole shapeshiftin’ thing of course.”

…

“You  _ are  _ gonna be right beside me in case he wakes up while I’m changing his bandages, right?”

I chose that moment to look into my sister’s brown eyes, open my mouth as if I were to say something, and then immediately darted out of the room and into my own to avoid my sibling’s wrath. I could hear her charging after me so as soon as I got into my bedroom I slammed the door shut, hearing the thump of my sister colliding with it.

“Fuck you too!!” I heard my sister screech from the other side of the door as I held it shut.

I’m a good older brother, I promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha,,,wow! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! If not then u hhh,,,oh well  
> i hope for your feedback!


	3. i have to burn my pants now THANKS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inkling wakes up! :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Some groce things happen in this chapter (vomit). Also, author did her best to accurately write a male character getting kicked in the nuts but it may not be 100% right.

A couple of days had passed since the incident, the two of us taking turns to check on the inkling and re-apply his bandages. He hasn’t woken up since the day he came, but he was healing pretty fast. Our stock of healing supplies was growing a little low, however, so we texted our eldest brother, Terrell, if he could go out and buy some for us along with the usual groceries before he came back home today.

You may ask, “William, how have you guys not been caught by your parents yet?” Well, we don’t necessarily have parents, y’see. When we were young, Alyssa and I, our parents had left us with no explanation. We had moved in with our aunt, but she was out most of the time so Terrell was forced to take care of us, and we were little asshats to him growing up. We started out in a very cramped and tiny house, but as the years went by, Terrell got bigger and better jobs, which resulted in us leaving our neglectful aunt and getting the two story house we have today. We even got a pool! A very cool brother we have.

Due to his current job, he was very ‘in and out’ of the house, though he always made sure to text us and call us when he could. He was never gone for too long, though one time he was gone for almost a straight month. He announced his return to the both of us via video chat yesterday, which produced a fire of worry in us that was quickly drenched as we remembered that this was our brother we were talking about, the one who nailed job interview after job interview with his warm and supportive personality, as well as his charming looks I’ve heard people claim he had. We had little to no doubt that he’d accept the inkling in our household, as long as we introduced him carefully.

“WILLIAM! GET UP! Terrell’s home! He brought breakfast, too! He’s got pancakes and everything!” I woke up with a start, Alyssa’s loud call startling me awake.

Mumbling curse words directed at my sister despite her being out of range, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes before stretching and giving a deep yawn, absentmindedly scratching at my neck. Shoving off the warm and comforting blankets that once covered my body, I was forced to embrace the cool and unwelcoming air around me as I got up.

Swinging my feet around to the side of my bed, I managed to slowly stand up, another yawn escaping my mouth. Lightly stumbling to my dresser, I pulled on a pale yellow shirt and some blue jeans, a plain and simple outfit. Spotting my glasses on the top of the dresser, I quickly put them on, the bandage upon my nose making it slightly askew, but it didn’t bother me much.

To my left side, I saw a mirror that held my reflection, so I decided to take the time to examine myself. I wasn’t the tallest guy for my age, only 5’4 while my sister was 5’6. I was also the same dark brown as my sister, only I had no noticeable freckles on my face like she did. The bandage on my nose was a very easily spotted contrast against my skin, so sneaking around in dark areas would be a no-no. My eyes were the exact same hue as my sisters, a nice choco-brown. Around them were my glasses, a very basic pair that had no touch ups or anything a typical teenager would have, but I loved them anyway. My hair was very loosely tied into a bun alike my sisters, only my hair color was a natural black rather than her dyed blue.

About to head out the door, I looked over my room. Messy, but not horrendously messy. Perfect. My dirty clothes from yesterday were scattered along the floor, and my bed wasn’t made because honestly, who would make their bed if they’re going to sleep in it just hours later?

Leaving my room, I walked down the hallway to the staircase, looking down from the banister. I spotted Alyssa and Terrell on the couch, happily eating freshly made pancakes that our older brother must’ve picked up before he arrived. Terrell was a well built man, since he went to the gym regularly, though he was as gentle as a mother cat. His hair was cut short and his face was warm and welcoming so he managed to strike up many conversations with random people who felt relaxed in his presence. Nearby were our two pets that he picked up from the kennel on his way home, our dog named Pepper, and our kitten named Salt. Despite their names, they were both very friendly animals, both to humans and to each other.

Pepper was a very peppy shiba inu, her coat was a nice charcoal black but her snout was was a mix of brown and white. She often played with Salt, our small and curious white munchkin kitten who never denied playing a game or two with her. The two were practically best friends, always chilling next to each other and never fighting. We were blessed with a good kitten and dog, thank you pet gods for whoever let this happen to us.

Dashing down the stairs, I ran over to Pepper and gave her a good pet on the head, and then lowering myself to gently scratch under Salt’s chin, the kitten mewling in delight. After implanting the adorable sound in my memory forever, I turned over to Terrell and grabbed his shoulders, startling him into pausing in his chewing.

“ _ Where the hell is the food, you have ten seconds or I will become cannibalistic. _ ” I jokingly growled at him, to which he chuckled at.

He swallowed his bite and pointed towards the kitchen, “Your pancake stack is in there, I got ‘em made with chocolate chips just how you always like it. Alyssa told me about your little ‘guest’, so I got another stack for him to enjoy too. Then again, she didn’t really ‘tell’ me right off the bat, so I had to go see for myself.”

I stood there flabbergasted, before angrily turning to my younger sister. She backed into the cushion on the couch, able to easily sense my fury, before speaking up.

“You know I’m not a good liar!”

“But you’re a good manipulator, couldn’t you have kept him away until I woke up?!”

“You know full well that Terrell can tell when I’m trying to change his direction!”

I huffed, “Well, you could’ve tried a little harder.”

“Oh! So you think I don’t try my hardest, huh? Is that it?”

“Yes it  _ fucking is  _ you-”

“William. Alyssa.” Terrell firmly stated our names in that ‘I’m not taking this shit today’ parent voice, prompting the both of us to shut our mouths before we said anything else stupid. “Will, you should head to the kitchen and pick up the pancakes, both for you and our ‘guest’. We’ll eat our breakfast, and then go up and check on the little guy, alright? Calm down, no need to attack each other.”

Roughly exhaling through my nose but not daring to roll my eyes, I grumpily trudged over to the kitchen, spotting the still hot pancakes on the counter. One stack was, sure enough, chocolate chip pancakes, making me lustfully lick my lips as I stared them down. Another stack next to them were plain buttermilk pancakes, complete with butter and syrup on top. I gently took both plates of pancakes into my hands, heading back into the living room with a fork in my mouth.

We sat and ate on the couch for a couple of minutes, silently watching TV and appreciating our time together after Terrell’s return. Soon after we finished the last of the pancakes, me licking my plate of its syrup before Alyssa oh so rudely snatched it from my hands, off to wash the dishes. She stuck her tongue out at me before walking to the kitchen, so I flashed her a finger when Terrell wasn’t looking, like a good older brother.

My older sibling stretched for a second, before exhaling a relieving sigh through his mouth, “Okay...Ready to go feed our unconscious guest that you two have been caring for in this house without me knowing for almost a week?”

I put on the best poker face I could muster, “ **_Yes._ ** ”

Terrell laughed, warmly patting me on my shoulder before reaching down and picking up the pancakes from the coffee table and shooing off Pepper, who was starting to grow nosy. Alyssa saw us heading up the stairs on her way out from the kitchen, hurrying up to join us on our ascent.

Amused, I put on a sly smile, “Don’t you have dishes to wash?”

She nonchalantly waved her hand, “Dishes smishes, I want to see the inkling dude finally wake up after doing nothing but changing his bandages every so often. Plus, if he doesn’t like pancakes, I could just take them instead.”

“Oink oink.” I mocked her in a teasing tone, prompting my sister to stick her tongue right out at me.

Terrell opened the door to the guest bedroom, the inkling still resting on the bed but looking much more healthier than on day one. His cheeks weren’t as flushed and he seemed less tense, looking like he was sleeping after an exhausting day rather than recovering from a fever. His pointed ear twitched at the sound of us all quietly walking in, but he showed no signs of waking up.

Gently lowering himself on the bed, Terrell reached an arm out and slowly shook the inkling in hopes of waking him. The boy stirred slightly, turning over onto his side and opening his eyes for a split second before heading right back under, still too tired to properly wake up. Terrell gave an amused hum before grabbing the fork with the buttermilk pancakes and tearing off a piece, steadily waving it under the kid’s nose.

That did the trick. The inkling slowly woke up, stretching his arms as he yawned and murmuring something under his breath in what seemed to be agitation. He gently rubbed his eyes before blinking them open and slowly taking in the world around him. Bright, lime green eyes looked around the room, quickly focusing on the beings before him, us.

Alyssa and I glanced at each other for a moment, apprehensive to whatever the inkling could be thinking as he stared at us. After a couple more moments of awkward, tense silence, I slowly began to speak up.

“Uhh, hi. You’ve-uhh-you’ve been in our house for a while and you got pretty banged up. You-uh...you feeling okay? You understand me?”

All I got was a blank stare in reply. Of course. I could hear Alyssa take in a breath to say some sort of snarky comment, so I stomped on her foot to keep her quiet. The inkling stared at me for a moment, then glanced at the forkful of pancake Terrell was still holding in front of him expectantly. There was a slight pause and we all could hear his stomach growl quite loudly in the silence, prompting the inkling to stutter and look off to the side in embarrassment with his cheeks flushed bright pink.

“C’mon.” Terrell encouraged, pushing the plate of pancakes toward the blushing inkling and handing him the fork, “Eat. I know you’re hungry.”

His eyes flickered up at Terrell’s face, unsure, before he took a small, hesitant bite off the pancake on the fork.

His face lit up and he quickly went at it, the little inkling happily digging into the pancakes after realizing just how hungry he was. He was going so fast that Terrell had to pat his back when he choked on his food like seven times. He managed to scarf down four pancakes in a manner of minutes before pushing away the rest of the stack with a content expression on his face.

Alyssa was quick to nab the leftover pancakes, immediately going to inhale the food like the pig she was. Within a minute she had cleaned the plate, which had to be some kind of record or something.

Rolling my eyes, I went to the side of the bed and squatted down to the inkling’s height, holding out a hand for a kind handshake, “Hey, little dude. I’m William. What’s your name?”

Instead of receiving the polite handshake I was expecting, I got a defensive growl, the inkling baring his teeth and shrinking back against the pillow he was leaning against. Alarmed, I backed away with both hands in the air in a defensive gesture, glaring at my sister who was hiding her laughter behind her hands. The kid didn’t change his posture, looking at me warily before shifting his gaze over to Terrell, who was still on the bed but a reasonable distance away from him.

Terrell saw the unease in the inkling’s stare and stood up off the bed, backing away too. We all stood there for a moment, watching the inkling’s eyes jump from looking at one of us to the next, his posture unchanging.

Alyssa spoke up in an angry whisper, “Pretty smart of him to eat pancakes offered to him by total strangers and  _ then  _ act like we’re the bad guys.”

Terrell sighed, “He was just trying to fill his stomach and has every right to be wary of us. Go easy on him, he’s possibly just incredibly terrified, we  _ are  _ absolute strangers to him.”

I shrugged, “Plus, he’s still kinda sick. If you had just possibly gone through hell, came in through a portal, and woke up feeling incredibly hungry and confused, you’d probably be a little irritable too.”

After a couple more moments of my siblings and I having a stare down with the inkling, the squid made the first move.

Hopping off the bed with a speed to envy, the inkling darted over to the only window in the room and tried to pry it open to no avail. The effort behind it was clear when he whipped back around, already starting to pant heavily. He was trying to escape.

Terrell quickly instructed Alyssa to shut the door and for me to stand back so we wouldn’t get hurt. He then slowly stepped toward the inkling and tried to get him to calm down with a soft voice, but the kid wasn’t having it. When Terrell got close enough, he started shaking in immense terror and looked like a cornered puppy. Then, right when Terrell was going to ‘trap’ him in the corner, he lunged forward and sunk his teeth into my older brother’s arm.

Alyssa and I both screamed at the sight and Terrell grunted, furrowing his brow and trying to get the inkling off of his arm. No matter how hard he tried, however, the inkling stayed on and seemed to sink his teeth in even further. After a second, he let go and swiftly kicked Terrell in the shin as hard as he could before running over to Alyssa and I.

We both had a mini stare down with him, while he was staring right back up at us. His bright green eyes flickered between the two of us before he quickly made his move.

“FUCK!” I yelped as he lunged at me, the force of him crashing into me knocking us to the floor. I wheezed after the impact and didn’t get to recover before he stood up and kicked me straight in the sack with as much force as he could. I could feel my lower half dying and rotting on its deathbed as I curled up in agony and watched with watery eyes as he slowly turned to my sister and stepped towards her, my sister in turn backing against the exit to the room.

He looked like he was about to attack her when he suddenly fell to his knees, holding himself up with his shaky arms. He strained to stand up and when my sister bent down to make sure he was alright, he straight up spat into her face.

Well, not necessarily  _ spat  _ but a thin stream of his ink flew from his mouth and into her face. More importantly, her open mouth.

Naturally she screamed, then choked, then frantically began trying to spit it out of her mouth, completely distracted from the inkling, who had a clear path to the door and gladly threw it open before running out into the hallway.

Apparently he wasn’t faking the whole ‘struggling to stand’ shit, as he immediately collapsed a few steps out right down onto his knees and was starting to make a gagging noise.

_ Ahhh fuck. _

I took a small breath, and then a couple more to get my breathing under control because holy  _ FUCK THIS HURTS. _ Trying my damned hardest to bear through the pain of my nuts getting assaulted, I slowly crawled over to the inkling, the kid covering his mouth with his hands and had his eyes squinted shut. With a bit of effort I sat up into an odd position to keep my lower half from screaming, resting beside him and rubbing his back in a comforting manner.

Soon after I began rubbing his back I saw him lurch forward, gross vomit leaking between his fingers and onto the carpet floor. I scrunched my nose at the sight but despite it I kept rubbing his back, knowing that he probably upset his stomach with all that activity he did to try and escape.

By the time he threw up a second time on the floor I could see Terrell walking toward us with a slight limp and bleeding arm. He crouched down in front of the inkling and gently patted his shoulder in sympathy with his good arm before taking my still shrieking sister and helping her out of the room.

I looked back down at the inkling and saw him trembling before vomiting what he had left in his stomach, adding to the gross pile of slightly digested pancakes in stomach acid. The inkling sat there for a second to get his bearings before he turned to look up at me, looking incredibly distressed.

He shuddered, hot tears gathering in the corner of his eyes and slowly slipping down his red cheeks. The poor dude tried to stand and slowly walk away from the gross pile he created in one last attempt to leave, though only got a couple of steps in before he promptly collapsed onto the floor and passed right back out.

At that moment, Terrell walked back into the room and saw the inkling passed out onto the floor and me just sitting there with a blank look on my face.

He sighed, “I’ll get the carpet cleaner. Will, you should shower. Or at least change your clothes.”

I gave him a look, “Why? It’s already a huge effort as it is to change my clothes, plus I’m not really in the best of shape to do literally  _ anything _ right now.”

“Because the inkling wiped some of the puke on his fingers onto your pants.” He informed on his way out the door.

Sure enough, looking down at my pants I could see the streak marks of gross, mushy, brown puke on my pants and I immediately hobbled out of the guest room and into my bedroom for a change of clothes. As soon as I got my pants off I tossed them out of my room and into the hallway, those pants were now a disgrace to me and my family.

Do you guys have any sources on where to buy or rent a flamethrower? Asking for a friend.


	4. i think things are gonna be okay

A little after that whole fiasco ended, Terrell, now with a bandaged arm, carried the half-conscious inkling back into the guest bedroom bridal style after washing off his hands in the bathroom. The kid was mumbling something in his language under his breath, looking exhausted and much sicker than before now that the adrenaline was fading away. Settling the inkling back into the bed, Terrell sighed and backed away, resting his hands against his hips and scolding the inkling.

“You see what happens when you overexert yourself? Now you’re back in bed, probably feeling worse than you did before. I understand you’re scared, but that’s no reason to completely flip out like that after we fed you. You’re still a little sick.” He berated the inkling gently. Despite the language barrier, the boy knew he was being scolded and had a guilty look on his face, refusing to make eye contact with Terrell.

My brother closed his eyes in frustration, putting a hand against his face and dragging it down slowly.

He then turned to me, “Will, could you watch him while I clean up the hallway? I’d get Alyssa to help out but she’s downstairs making him a small sandwich to fill up his stomach again.”

“No prob.” I lied, flashing him a thumbs up. Of course it was a goddamn “Prob,” this little asshole just fucking gave me the famous Kick of Infertility. I’d be lucky if I could even piss after this.

My brother sighed, “I’ll try to remember to get you some ice so you can sit comfortably. Try not to be harsh with him, alright? You would’ve done the same thing in his situation.”

I scoffed, “No, I would’ve sat on my bed and tried to get along with the strangers who took me into their home like a good houseguest.”

“Will, you see his bandages? He’s been hurt, he’s scared, and he’s sick. He may have kicked you and bit me, but for all we know he could’ve been in deep trouble before he ‘flew in here’. Speaking of which, did he really…?”

I nodded, “Yeah, flew right into me from the TV and knocked me out faster than a John Cena playing Punch Out.”

Terrell chuckled as he started heading for the door, “I’m pretty sure John Cena’s wrestling abilities has no relevance to a _boxing_ game.”

I stared at the door once he was gone.

...There’s a difference between wrestling and boxing? Oh...my God, I thought they were interchangeable this entire time. What the fuck.

Deciding to leave that thought for later, I looked back at the inkling on the guest bed. He was looking around the room, studying every detail before his gaze eventually met mine. I hate to say it but he actually looked...cute, despite the fact that he kicked me in the good ol’ penis necklace. Credits to my sis for that one.

After a short period of time, the inkling sighed and pushed the covers of the bed off of him. I was prepared to run in case he was thinking about doing another one of those ‘escape plans’ of his, but instead he just crawled along the bed over in my direction and sat on the edge. His feet hanged off the side and he kicked them back and forth as if he was a kindergartener while he stared down at the floor in awkward silence.

“Uh...hi?” I hesitantly greeted him, to which he replied with what I assume was a greeting in his language too. Another awkward pause passed and afterwards I sat on the edge of the bed next to him, my feet reaching the floor with ease. The inkling briefly glanced up at me but quickly stared back down at his lap as he twiddled his thumbs and swung his feet back and forth.

I looked down at him for a moment, taking it all in. A living, breathing inkling was in the same room as me, sitting on the same bed as me. He was real and he somehow can survive and he’s sitting right next to me, twiddling his thumbs. And he was an asshole.

I slowly raised my hand and held it over to his face, the inkling turning his gaze and staring at it curiously. After a bit of staring, his eyes flickered to me and he let out a confused chirp.

Then I flicked his forehead. He deserved _some_ kind of punishment for earlier, and honestly this was the bare minimum. He yelped and rubbed the area on his forehead with his hand while bitterly glaring at me, then stuck his tongue out.

Can’t say he was expecting to be promptly shoved off the bed in retaliation with a startled scream. He landed on the floor with a harsh thump and cried out in pain, which made me realize that this dude was still injured and I could get in trouble for doing that. However, there seemed to be no sore feelings and instead the inkling rolled onto his back and looked up at me with a playful pout, understanding that I was just messing with him. Then he held his arms up, asking to be lifted from the floor since it’d probably ache for him to get up himself.

Instead of doing that, I got up and left the room to leave him to die.

…

…

……..Fine, I won’t leave him to die. Extremely tempting, though. I actually just slowly walked out and shut the door and kept my laughter to myself as I heard him angrily chattering something in his gurgly language after me. Honestly, he deserved this.

Now that I was in the hallway, I turned around and saw Terrell crouched down on the carpet floor with cleaning supplies surround him, finishing up cleaning the slightly ingested pancakes the little dude spewed out earlier. He noticed me standing there and raised his eyebrows, most likely wondering why I left the inkling in his room by himself.

“...Is he alright?”

“Oh. Yeah, he’s fine.”

There was a pause.

Rightfully suspicious, Terrell stood up and walked to the guest room door, twisting the doorknob and opening it. He peeked into the room and started chuckling, which made me curious enough to look in myself.

The inkling was still laying on the floor, bitterly staring up at the ceiling with his arms to his side and his fists clenched. He didn’t even spare us a glance as we peeked in, though I could tell he heard us from his ear twitching ever so slightly. Terrell walked into the room and stood above the inkling with amusement, and watched as the inkling looked up at him and held his arms up, begging to be helped from the floor.

My brother’s kind nature made him give in and I frowned as he bent down and helped the inkling to his feet. Turning around, the inkling caught my gaze and again stuck his tongue out at me, though it was Terrell this time who flicked his forehead, disapproving of his behavior. When Terrell averted his gaze from the two of us for a millisecond, I quickly stuck my tongue out at the inkling and snickered at his offended expression.

Terrell stepped over to the door and let out a gentle sigh, “I’ll go put the cleaning supplies away and get you the ice. You two, stay out of trouble and don’t do anything stupid. You,” He pointed at the inkling, who shrank back at the gesture, “don’t get yourself sick again, you need to rest.” He then pointed at the bed.

Catching the gist of what he was saying based on his tone, the inkling shyly looked down at the floor and nodded before plopping himself back onto the bed with no complaints. Terrell gave him a quick smile and then looked in my direction.

“Try not to agitate him too much, alright? Knowing you, you’d probably get him running around the house in ten minutes at least.”

“That’s a lie, I could get him running in five.” I joked, to which he laughed and patted my shoulder before going out the door and shutting it.

Now that he was gone, I glanced back at the inkling sitting on the bed, who caught my gaze and stuck his tongue back out at me. Naturally, I shoved him off the bed onto the floor and took his place, laying back and closing my eyes.

He whined for a little bit while on the floor, then suddenly stopped. I thought nothing of it until I heard what sounded like crying, and immediately sat up and looked down at the floor. The guy was sitting on his back with watery, lime green eyes staring right up at me. His mouth was trembling and he look like he was going to straight up burst into tears.

Feeling guilty, I rolled myself to the edge of the bed and swung my legs over the side before standing up and stretching briefly. Sighing, I trudged over to the inkling and looked down at him with a sympathetic expression, bending down and pulling him to his feet because he looked too goddamn pitiful just laying there.

I helped him onto the bed and cleaned off his outfit of any bits of lint or dust that may have gotten onto it, the inkling staying silent the entire time. Once I was done, I patted the dude’s head to say I was sorry and then laid back onto the bed and shut my eyes.

...

Without warning, I felt myself being quickly shoved off the bed and onto the floor, not given enough time to react. I yelped as I hit the carpet, the shock leaving me stunned for a moment. As I got my bearings, I heard high pitched laughter coming from on top of the bed and looked up to see that asshole looking down at me with a large grin. Fucking dickbag used crocodile tears and actually fooled me!

Standing up, I glowered down at the inkling and watched as his laughter died down and he looked up at me in fear. That’s right, you’re gonna pay, you little _shit_.

I immediately pinned one of the inkling’s arms down and tickled his sides, causing him to start shrieking and desperately kick the air in an attempt to get me off of him. His shrieks turned into laughter and he started to claw at me with his free hand, resulting in me pinning that one down too. Due to both of my arms being taken up, I had to stop for a second and think of another way to get back at him as he caught his breath. The inkling’s face was completely flushed and joyful tears were pricking in the corners of his eyes, his chest heaved with every breath and his eyes were closed tightly shut.

After a moment, a genius idea came to mind. In the midst of him recovering, I let go of one of his arms and rolled up his shirt before taking in a giant breath and blew raspberries on his stomach. The results were immediate, the inkling literally screamed and started giggling rapidly, kicking his feet even faster and harder than before. Sometimes they actually would hit me in the stomach and I’d have to stop for a second, but I would continue on despite the pain since it was definitely worth it.

Eventually I let up on the inkling, letting him fully catch his breath and lay down on the bed in peace. His tentacles awkwardly bent due to his head laying straight down onto the mattress, so I did him a favor and slipped his tentacle-band off while he was still recovering. It was interesting to see it in real life, as it looked exactly how it did in the game. Green, yellow, and red plastic covering with an elastic band keeping it all together.

The inkling eventually caught his breath and sat up, tentacles flopping down to the sides of his head, looking exhausted most likely due to being excessively tickled plus still being a little ill. He closed his eyes and yawned before shaking his head and blinking his eyes open, prolonging his need to pass out. He looked over at me and stared for a moment, before pointing at me and saying something in a demanding tone.

I furrowed my brow and gave him a weird look, “What? What do you want?”

He groaned and shuffled closer to me on the bed before taking his finger and thrusting it against my chest and saying the same thing in a more insistent tone. Was he...asking for my name?

“You do realize I don’t speak your language, right? I don’t understand your weird little ‘drowning while speaking’ gurgly voice. You probably wouldn’t be able to pronounce my name no matter how much you tried and same for me.” I pointed out, earning nothing but a head tilt in reply.

I sighed, feeling a little exasperated. I pointed at myself, thinking that I might as well humor him and at least let him attempt my name. “William. Wiiiill-iiii-aaaam.” I pronounced, saying it once normally and then slowly sounding it out.

The inkling had an iffy look on his face, unsure as to what he heard. He murmured something in his language, his ears twitching in slight irritation. Then he looked up at me, hesitantly saying my name and getting it wrong.

“Will-ee-ehm?” He uttered unsurely, a noticeable gurgling sound in his speech. I shook my head, saying my name once more in a patient tone. It was most likely the first time he ever said something that was close to the English language.

“Will-ee-ehm!” He chirped louder, a hint of confusion hidden in his gurgly voice. I shrugged, choosing to accept what he could give me. I made a mental note to teach him my name once he was more accustomed to English and its words.

“Close enough.”

I then pointed at him, “What’s your name, then?”

He proceeded to make the most ungodly, scratchiest, weirdest fucking noise I’ve ever heard. I shrunk back for a second, disbelieving what I heard. I made a gesture for him to say it again, and got the same exact results.

“Yeah, okay. I’m not calling you that.” I stated bluntly. Tilting my head in contemplation, I thought about a name to call the inkling in the meantime until I found out his real name. Spot? Fuck no, that’s dehumanizing him to an animal. Well, he sorta was an animal, but he was also human too. But then again, he wasn’t a human, he was a squid. But he was a squid that over time evolved into a human-like creature capable of sentient thought akin to ours. What?

Choosing not to think about it, I decided to name him something simple.

“Tenta.” I pointed at the inkling, now named Tenta. He scowled, angrily gurgling something at me, probably cursing. I smirked, “That’s your name now. Tenta.”

He didn’t like the name, apparently. I got the hint when he hissed distastefully and crossed his arms. I shrugged nonchalantly, flashing a sly, mocking smile at him. I knew he could tell that I named him something stupid.

Suddenly, the door to the guest room opened back up and my sister poked her head inside. We all held eye contact with each other for a moment before she stepped into the room, one hand holding a plate with a sandwich and the other holding a bag of ice.

“Sup.”

“Yo.” As you can see, we both had very formal and educated vocabularies used among those with the highest intelligence on earth.

She slowly walked up to Tenta, holding out the sandwich to him, “I know you spat God knows what into my mouth and have possibly given me many fish diseases, but I’m willing to put that aside and give you a second chance. Here’s a peace offering, a delicious tuna sandwich. Also, you look stupid with your tentacles by your face like that.”

“Why the hell would you use tu-” I attempted to complain.

“‘Cuz he’s an inkling. It was a thought process, y’know? Make sandwich for inkling. Inkling is a squid. Squids like fish. Tuna _is_ fish. Therefore, inklings must love tuna because they’re squids.”

“How do you know? Maybe Tenta’s more of a beef fan.”

“I-Will-How do yo- _No_ . First of all, he’s eating the sandwich and seems to like it _and I highly doubt they have cows after ten thousand years of flooded oceans and land war_ .” She deadpanned, “Second of all- _Really, Will? Really?_ That’s the name you come up with? I mean, I knew your creativity was dead since kindergarten when you drew literally nothing but yourself, but this is a whole new level. Third of all-”

A stream of pink ink flew directly into her face from Tenta’s mouth, cutting her off. We both gawked in surprise and turned our attention to Tenta, seeing him sitting there with a bitter look on his face, glaring at Alyssa.

Oh _._

“...”

“.....”

After a pause, Alyssa proceeded to spit the ink into my face and held out her other hand that held the bag of ice to me, “Here’s your frozen dick water.”

She then turned to the inkling, jabbing her finger into his forehead, “You’re on thin ice, buddy. I made you a sandwich and you literally spat in my face. _Fuck you._ ”

I scoffed, “Oh so when you spit in my face it’s fine, but when an innocent little sweetheart mistakenly gets a little saliva into yours it’s suddenly offensive?”

Alyssa wiped off the ink on her face with her bare hands. Looking around for something to clean her hands off with, she eventually decided to choose my face and shirt to clean off her hands. She was delicate with it too, forcefully smearing it into my face and trying to suffocate me with the pent up anger and rage every little sister has.

“‘INNOCENT LITTLE SWEETHEART’ MY ASS!” My sister hissed as she fought to cover my face in Tenta’s weird mouth ink. I desperately tried to pry her away from me because Sensitive Dick On Board, but she managed to nearly completely cover my face in the pink ink. So now we were two weird black kids covered in pink goo.

There was a quick silence.

“...Y’know, in the inkling world-” I started.

“No.”

I bursted out laughing, “N-No! Seriously, I’m being serious. Swear on it.”

My sister huffed through her nose, the pink ink covering it flying off onto the carpet, “I don’t care.”

“So- uh- ink that comes from inklings…evaporates.”

“Oh! Oh yeah,” My sister exclaimed sarcastically, “I’m totally going to wait for like twenty minutes for this ink to evaporate. I’ll sit in the sun if I have to, just to get this stuff right off my face instead of washing it off with water and drying myself off with a towel like a normal person.”

“Actually it takes just three minutes, presumably more if-”

She stood up and walked out the door, “Bye.”

A slightly awkward silence filled the room. I turned to the inkling, who glanced up at me before looking back at the door. Then looked back at me, face seeming to ask ‘what’s her deal?’

I then put my hand on his face and promptly shoved him off the bed. While him having a dislike for my sister was funny, it still was a little dickish of him to go at her like that. This was gonna be my prime form of punishment from now on. Shoving him off beds.

“I know you don’t seem to like her much, but she’s my sis and you gotta ease up on her a bit. She may be sarcastic and rude, plus a bit of a bitch at times, but she’s still my sis and you should get along with her.”

Tenta just stared at me blankly from the floor. Right, language barrier. Forgot all about that.

I sighed, “Forget it. Also, I’m still pissed at you for kicking my nuts. I’m also a little impressed; how the hell did you and your noodle limbs manage to fucking obliterate my nutsack?”

Tenta gave me nothing but an odd stare and a confused chirp.

I scratched my ear to get rid of a mild itch, “We really gotta teach you English, or some key words at least. Y’know, like ‘eat’ or ‘stay’ or ‘hello’, little things like that. Well, it’d be more like training you like a pet since we don’t have an ‘English to Inkese’ dictionary or whatever to teach you better. How fast do you pick up words?”

Tenta hummed, seeming to just go with whatever I was saying. Okay, yes, I was talking to him even though it’s a one-sided conversation. Sue me, it enhances the learning process. I definitely didn’t say that to try and sound smart.

“Tenta.”

He chirped in acknowledgement. Great, despite his bitterness towards his new name he still accepted it.

“Tenta, come.” I instructed, patting the empty space next to me on the bed. Little things first.

I heard him groan and saw him slowly pick himself up off the floor. He winced a bit -the injuries must’ve been agitated- before climbing onto the bed next to me and flopping down face first. Alright, ‘come’ was the first officially taught word. Progress has been made and I deserve at least three trophies. Four for having a crushed dick and still managing to live.

After a moment, I touched my face, briefly remembering that Alyssa so graciously decided to share the fate she had endured with me. I didn’t feel any pink goop on my face, plus I didn’t see any on my shirt, so I assume the right to...assume that...that shit evaporated. Y’know, on second thought, maybe I should get an actual English expert to teach him how to speak since I’m absolute shit at it.

Wanting to get off my ass and go downstairs, I took in a small breath and slowly stood up. The bag of ice fell to my feet and I took a couple of experimental steps to judge the amount of pain I would have. Good news, my dick was perfect.

I turned to Tenta, who was still face down into the blankets. “Let’s go.” I ordered, shaking him gently.

No response.

I shook him harder.

Still no response.

“Fuck, fuck! Please don’t tell me I killed you!” I panicked, urgently rolling him off his stomach and onto his back. Inklings are so much more fragile than I thought, what if I caused some sort of fatal internal bleeding?

Oh, nope, he was just sleeping. His limbs were awkwardly sprawled out on the bed, his mouth open with little snores coming from it. He _did_ seem a little tired earlier, but I didn’t think he’d fall asleep that fast. I pressed my hands to my face and slid them down my cheeks, embarrassed that I flipped out over something so minor.

I had a couple of options here. One, leave him to die peacefully. Two, revive him and force him to come downstairs with me. And three, carry his corpse on my back downstairs and let him rot on the couch.

I decided to go with option one. At this point I was sure he trusted me and siblings not to hurt him, and I trusted him not to try and escape out the window like he initially planned. Plus, he could definitely use the sleep. Despite being on a constant snooze cruise until recently, Tenta looked exhausted and still was recovering from...whatever he went through.

As I quietly stepped out the room to not wake the inkling, I made a mental note to ask him about whatever he went through before he flew in when he learned enough words. A small pang of guilt hit me square in the chest as I thought about his injuries and just how _terrified_ he was when we first met. He shouldn’t have bit Terrell, spat in Alyssa’s face, nor kicked me in the nuts...but on that first day when he first came, he clearly looked like he faced some sort of abuse. The worst part about it is that it may have come from the Octarians.

What did they do to him? Why did they do it? Do they not understand that he’s only fourteen? He’s so young and doing so much...Is there more to Splatoon than what’s shown on the screen?

I pondered the thought as I stepped down the stairs, mind completely zoned out from the outside world. I didn’t even notice my brother snapping his fingers in front of my face until he did it around five times.

“Will? You okay?” He asked with a concerned tone, “You don’t normally space out like that.”

I shook my head, “It’s fine, it’s fine. I was just thinking about Tenta’s perspective in all this.”

“Who?”

“Tenta.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

“...His name is Tenta?”

My brother chuckled, “You keep saying the name but you haven’t told me who specifically you’re talking about. Is that the inkling’s name or something?”

Oh. “Yeah. I named him that.”

“...”

“...”

“...William.” Shit.

“Yes?”

“You-”

“Uh-huh?”

“You... _named_ hi-”

“Absolutely!”

My brother gave me the most exasperated look he could muster. It was times like these I felt just a little bad for him having to put up with me.

“...Right. Alright.” He sighed in defeat. I win.

I couldn’t help but mess with him a little more. “In case you didn’t know, the name stemmed from the word te-”

“Tentacle. Yes, I’ve realized.” Terrell deadpanned, pinching the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb. After a moment, he sighed once more and walked to the couch, slouching on it and looking ready to pass out. I sat down right beside him and enjoyed the peaceful almost-silence with the TV running but not on a channel we cared about.

Eventually, Alyssa came into the room as well from upstairs, looking bored out of her mind. She looked around warily for Tenta in case he was with us and let out a relieved sigh when she realized he wasn’t there. Then she plopped down on the couch on the other side of Terrell, completing the list of necessary materials we needed for the satanic ritual.

Salt and Pepper came into the room after a little while too, playing around on the floor and mock fighting each other. Salt would swat at Pepper’s snout while on her back and Pepper would awkwardly raise a paw and bop the kitten on the head. While they had a very big size difference, they both still loved each other and constantly played when they could.

I had zoned out yet again when Terrell tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward the stairs. I glanced up and spotted Tenta coming down the stairs still looking drowsy. He rubbed his eyes with a hand in an attempt to wake himself up, but judging by the light sway on his feet and the yawns leaving his mouth I could tell he still needed a bit more rest.

The seasonings (a nickname for Salt and Pepper) both stopped in their playtime and immediately went to investigate the new presence in the room. Salt was slow in her approach to Tenta, curious but cautious. Pepper was more reckless, jogging with a pep in her step toward the inkling, sniffing the air for new scents.

Tenta immediately halted any moment when he spotted the two animals, looking at the two warily. He glanced up at us for a split second before staring down the seasonings with an unreadable expression, slowly inching back up the stairs backwards. Was he scared of them?

Unfortunately for him, the seasonings picked up on what was happening and slowly followed, their little paws taking small steps for each inch Tenta moved back. Clearly they both thought it was a game, Salt’s tail swirling around playfully and Pepper’s tail excitedly swinging back and forth. Tenta, however, looked more and more apprehensive at each coming second. He was looking up at us now, silently pleading for us to help him. Thing was, I didn’t wanna help him ‘cuz he was a bastard.

Terrell had stood and was making his way over to them, but as soon as Pepper barked, the inkling bolted up the stairs with a loud yelp, speed surprisingly fast. Both of the seasonings moved to chase after him, but the more evil of the two was stopped by Terrell, the dog desperately trying to wriggle out of his grip and barking nonstop but to no avail. Salt was still on the loose however, and was definitely faster than Pepper and could catch up to the inkling if she wanted, but she liked to toy with her victims first.

It took a minute, but eventually Tenta came racing back down the stairs, Salt following after him. The inkling dashed towards us all with a panicked expression and quickly turned his gaze to me, the person sitting on the couch and minding his damn business. Once he was close enough, Tenta immediately leaped off the carpet floor and onto the couch, before proceeding to climb on top of me and despite my protests and yelps of pain, held a death grip on me while seated awkwardly on my shoulders.

Salt was at my feet, meowing loudly in displeasure now that her prey was out of reach. She leaped onto the couch and tried to climb up my goddamn body just like Tenta did, but I adamantly refused and placed her back onto the floor since she had sharp claws that could dig into my flesh and kill me. Plus, as soon as she even got close to my foot, Tenta started snarling exactly like a wolf and I was terrified for both her and _my_ life in that moment. What kind of inkling can snarl and sound just like a wolf who woke up on the wrong side of the ground? Geez.

It took a lot of coaxing to get Tenta to climb off my shoulders and even try to get to know the Seasonings. We introduced Pepper first, keeping her in Terrell’s arms so she wouldn’t go overboard and potentially make Tenta lose it. She wiggled eagerly in his grasp and just wanted to get loose and play with the inkling, but her attitude could be overbearing for a creature who’s never seen a dog before in his life. Lots of people love dogs, though, so would an inkling really be an exception?

Yeah. An inkling would, as a matter of fact. Tenta hated Pepper’s guts. He despised her, didn’t want another second with poor Pepper in his personal space. Anytime she leaned in to try and lick him or at least get a good sniff in he’d get this dark look on his face and while it was cute, it was also the face of _danger._ At least he didn’t seem scared of her anymore, just agitated and ready to rip her to shreds. The dog eventually got the message from his body language towards her and kept her distance, knowing she’d be up against some serious shit if she tried anything. It wasn’t often we would see someone have a large distaste for dogs, but I didn’t blame Tenta at all considering this was his first time meeting one and he didn’t start off on the right foot with it.

With Salt, however, they were instant best friends. It took significantly less effort to get Tenta to warm up to the kitten, plus she was much calmer and softer looking than Pepper. Tenta went from shying away from Salt and trying to hastily climb onto my shoulders again to laying on the couch with her and playing with her using one of her mouse toys. He even knew the sweet spot behind her ears when he petted her, which made me wonder if he had previous experience with a ca- Oh _riiiiight_. Still, I wonder why he was so apprehensive about her since she was a cat just like Judd.

With that situation handled and dealt with, we all sat back down on the couch, Alyssa seated the furthest away from Tenta of course. Terrell and I watched the tv and made occasional comments about it while Alyssa quietly went on her phone and texted those so called ‘friends’ of hers. They were absolute assholes if you asked me, but Alyssa had a case of Friendship Stockholm Syndrome and believed they were her best friends and that they were great to her despite being shitheads. If they came at me like they did to her, I’d tell them to shove a stick right up their a-

“William!”

I was snapped out of my thoughts when Terrell called my name, “Wha-Yeah?”

“You’ve been pretty lost in thought lately. ‘Called your name three times before that.” He mused, “Is something up?”

I scoffed, “Pshh, nah. I’m good. Did you want something?”

He shrugged, “Nothing in particular. Just thought I’d ask you about our ‘guest’ now, since we may be housing him for a while. You always play that game I gave you that starred him...Splatoon?”

I was ecstatic. It wasn’t often Terrell asked about the video games I played, since he had no interest in them before. While the situation called for him to question about the game and he never would’ve asked otherwise, I still sorta appreciated it.

“Yeah! He can shapeshift from kid to squid and loves to do these online battles called Turf Wars-”

My brother laughed and shook his head, “I meant more specific facts about his species so we can get him what he needs to be healthy and all that, you can tell me about the game later. From what I know, they’re active and squids are their ancestors. Is there anything else?”

I clicked my tongue, trying to think of anything, “I dunno, to be honest. The game doesn’t talk much about how inklings work, just that they like fashion and being cool.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, I remember it being implied in the game that inklings may be a little more intelligent than us since they got such big heads. They may have a prime diet of fish since they _are_ squid kids and they also seem to like being active but can be very lazy at the same time too. Just like teenagers except a little...better?”

Terrell leaned back into the couch and sighed, “Okay, remind me to pick up some fresh fish from the store. And maybe we can try other seafood, but I’d have to ask people which store is the best to buy from.”

I looked back at Tenta, who was filled with bountiful amounts of energy before but now seemed to be on the verge of passing out again. He would move around the mouse toy and let Salt pounce after it for one moment, then he’d start dozing off and would drop the toy from his hand. Then Salt would meow to keep him awake and the cycle kept repeating over and over.

The sight got so stupid and sad that I eventually just took the toy from Tenta and threw it a large distance away from the couch to keep Salt entertained for a little bit. Tenta groaned for a moment and glared at me in irritation, folding his arms and slouching in a pout. I squished his cheeks in response to let him know that his opinion was overruled in this decision and frankly, I didn’t care and thought he was a tool.

I turned my attention back to Terrell, “We should get him some new clothes too, though I’m not sure how he’s gonna fit his bigass head in the collars of his shirt.”

My brother tapped his chin, “I could try and get him some button up shirts but nothing much more than that, really. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it and worry about the present right now.”

“Yeah, like how we’re gonna get him to take a bath. Tenta fucking _reeks._ ”

Terrell frowned, “Why would it be a struggle to get him to take a bath? Every being needs to get clean in some way.”

I shrugged, “I dunno, inklings are hydrophobic for some reason. Their bodies seem to immediately dissolve in water and they can’t survive in it.”

Silence.

“Squids who dissolve in water?”

“Yeah.”

“Squids. Squids that dissolve in water.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I know, I thought it was dumb too when I first heard of it.” Alyssa pipped in. “You ain’t the only one.”

I rolled my eyes, “Am I really the only one who finds it funny from how ironic it is?”

“Yeah.” My sister deadpanned, folding her arms across her chest in that sassy way she always did, “Yeah, you are.”

“Wow.”

I felt something touch my feet and looked down to see Salt sitting there with the mouse toy in her mouth, silently asking me to play with her. I guess she knew Tenta wasn’t gonna be a good playmate with how half-dead he seemed to be.

Speak of the devil...I looked over to Tenta and saw him laying down and turned to the inside of the couch. He was curled up ever so slightly and his breaths were slow and quiet. I’m either giving the description of someone who’s dying, or someone who fell asleep. This story would be a lot more interesting if it was the former.

Hopefully Tenta’s sleeping habits would ease up and he’ll be able to stay awake for the whole day soon, but he definitely still needed the rest despite being knocked out for around a week or so. His wounds were almost all the way healed up and Alyssa said a little while ago that she’d take off the bandages a day after tomorrow, so that’s also a good plus. I was filled with a bit of dread, wondering what the scars would look like and if they would fade away over time. I didn’t see much of his wounds before Alyssa bandaged them up, but based on the glimpse I saw before I passed out, he’d have those scars for a _long_ time.

In the midst of my thoughts, I didn’t notice Salt prepping to hop onto my lap until the feline was already there, claws digging into my jeans as she balanced herself. Then, with her little white tail swirling around, she quietly jumped off my lap and moved across the couch to where Tenta slept. She mewed gently as she approached the sleeping inkling, shuffling around and eventually resting in an oddly tight spot between Tenta and the couch. Then again, cats are all about tight spaces.

Alyssa held up her phone, “I’m getting a pic of this. I gotta treasure this moment.”

An uneasy feeling washed over me, “Are you sure about that? What if something happens and that picture gets out somewhere?”

She shrugged, “People will just say it’s photoshop or somethin’. It’s not like a living, breathing inkling who came from who knows where is gonna be world famous with a single picture when there’s thousands of media that’s been altered to look real. If anything, people would probably ask me the ‘drawing process’ or whatever behind this pic.”

Terrell and I stared blankly at her.

She did the same to us.

…

“You go on the internet too much.” I stated. There’s nobody out there who would have that thought process unless they were street smart online.

Alyssa gawked, “As if you’re any better! You stay cooped up in your room all the time unless either you’re hungry or you gotta take a shit!”

I rolled my eyes, “Probably because I can’t take your dumbass attitude and overbearing voice, lil’ sis.”

My sister scoffed and looked ready to retort, but Terrell saved the day by cupping a hand over her mouth and holding his index finger over his lips. Right, Tenta passed the fuck out.

Alyssa huffed and stood from the couch, heading into the kitchen to do...whatever it is teenage girls did in kitchens. Drink milk straight from the carton? Well, she does that but I’m sure that’s not really much of a teenage girl stereotype.

“I know you and Alyssa love to bicker, but please remember that our ‘guest’ is still recovering and all that.” My brother sighed.

“...His name is Te-”

 _“Yes, William. I am aware of that fact.”_ He hissed between his teeth, which made me shrink back. Damn, I was only trying to mess with him a bit. I didn’t think he’d get pissed so fast with us, but then again he always tends to become a bit of an ass himself whenever Alyssa and I bicker and fight over something.

I slouched in my seat, suddenly feeling bored and a little negative. I looked back at Tenta, who was now laying on his back with Salt curled up on his chest. His head lolled to the side and I could see a thin line of drool escaping his mouth, which really added some ‘grace’ points to him. Didn’t help that he was starting to snore a bit either, but it was forgivable since they were very light. I just hoped they weren’t gonna get louder in time.

After a bit of staring, I felt a happy, fluttering feeling in my stomach. An inkling. A living, breathing inkling in my house. He came in out of the TV, spat on my sister, and he’s gonna stay with us.

That’s pretty cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave your feedback in the comments and tell me what you guys think!!! ;w;


	5. is there a tutorial on how to wash ur inkling bc i suck at it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenta gets clothes and doesn't get to wear any of it while also getting washed and hating it. in other news, he and Will have a five minute dispute on who takes the bed and who takes the floor when it's bed time
> 
> have fun reading!!!!

“Squid!” Plop.

I cackled, the sound of Tenta turning into a squid in real life was strangely hilarious to me. In his squid form he glared at me, angrily squeaking and probably assuming I was making fun of him. In response I laughed even harder.

We had spent the next couple of days my room going over some English words, and I had managed to teach him some commands as well. It may seem weird to teach an inkling -who was practically a human- commands, but how else would I be able to teach him English? It’s not like we had an English to Inkese textbook available to purchase on amazon. So far he had learned a handful of words like “Eat” and “Good”, as well as our names. He struggled with pronouncing a few of them at first, but eventually he got the hang of them, although he never managed to say my name correctly, settling for “Willy” for short, though he pronounced it “Will-ee” instead. He’s probably doing it on purpose at this point, since he’s a little bastard.

After a couple of pokes from yours truly, he morphed back, nipping my finger with his teeth in agitation. I yelped, pulling back my poor injured appendage and sucking the blood from it before pointing at Tenta with my uninjured finger on my other hand and saying one word, “Bad.”

Mr.Little Asshole childishly stuck his tongue out at me, silently gloating. I decided that his sides needed a fast and frantic finger dance on them to teach him a lesson. He screeched, falling down onto the floor and cackling as my fingers tickled his small yet athletic body. He kicked his legs and tried to shove me away, but I kept coming after him, his laughter only getting harder and louder. I eventually let up on him when I saw his fight begin to weaken, and soon the only sound in the room was his wheezing of recovery.

Terrell opened the door to my room, sticking his head inside and jiggling the car keys, “C’mon, let’s go to the clothes store. I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s noticed that Tenta’s been stinking up the place with his clothes. We gotta get him some replacements.”

I turned my head back at Tenta, whose eyes were closed but he was still very much awake, probably just resting. I noticed him messing with his shirt with a hand, obviously uncomfortable in it.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s noticed too. Been snappy lately,” I looked down towards my injured finger, “Do you want us to wash him while you’re out? I mean, I’m not sure how we’ll do that given his species are hydrophobic, but ‘Lyss and I can work out something.”

Terrell shook his head, “Nah, we’re taking him with us. You’ve told me before how inklings are all about being ‘fresh’, so we might as well let him pick out clothes that he wants. You can make a bath for him when we get back home.”

“Gotcha. Tenta, let’s go,” I tapped the resting inkling, who was still wheezing slightly. He opened his eyes up into a glare, before groaning and slowly standing up and stretching. I started walking out my bedroom door, and he followed close behind, a disgruntled look on his face.

Reaching the front door of the house, I turned to my older brother.

“Well, we can’t just walk out there with an inkling behind us, if he’s coming with us how’re we supposed to hide him?”

Before Terrell had a chance to respond, Tenta gurgled something in his language and morphed into a little pink squid, slithering over to my school bag, which I hadn’t moved since day one. He sat beside it for a second, before looking at me with an expectant glint in his lime eyes. I rolled my eyes, snatching up the bag and dumping out the contents on the couch, setting it back on the ground and letting Tenta slip his way inside.

Picking up the bag, I zipped it up but left a small opening for Tenta to see out of if he chose to. I lifted the bag to my face, whispering a terrible threat to the inkling,  _ “If you stink up the bag your bath is going to be full of humiliating rubber ducks and bubbles _ .”

He chirped unknowingly in response. Perfect.

Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I walked out the door with Terrell in front, spotting the black van in the driveway. Alyssa suddenly zoomed past me as I was making my way towards the front passenger seat of the car, opening the door to it and rushing inside. I didn’t even get a chance to exhale before the car door shut with a slam. I could see her in the car looking directly at me, cackling. Pissed, I turned to Terrell and hoped he’d say something, but he just shrugged.

“She got in the seat first.”

Growling under my breath, I stomped my way over to the back seat door of the car, tossing the bag in and hopping in before slamming the door shut. It took me a moment to remember that Tenta was inside the bag I just crudely tossed, so I zipped it open and peeked inside to check if he was okay.

I was met with an angry squirt of ink to the face.

I spat and sputtered for a moment, wiping the pink ink off my face and my glasses as I watched Tenta hop out of the bag and onto the seat. He morphed back into kid form and huffed, putting on his seatbelt before crossing his arms and looking away angrily. Alyssa was still laughing from the passenger seat, arms wrapped around her sides as her cackles shook her body.

“I probably deserved that,” I admitted bitterly, wiping the remaining ink off my forehead and flicking it off onto the floor. Tenta didn’t respond.

Terrell then hopped into the car in the driver seat, inserting the key into the ignition and turning on the car. He backed out of the driveway and made his way onto the road, and then we were off to the clothes store.

The ride there wasn’t very eventful at first. We lived in a town in a rural area, but in a neighborhood that had some really nice houses. Inklings in the game lived in Inkopolis, which is a big city setting, so this location was much different than what Tenta was used to. He was looking out the window in awe, the inkling taking in a whole new setting. I could hear him gurgling quietly to himself as he gazed outside, his lime eyes following the passing street lights. I smiled lightly, finding the whole sight to be adorable as hell.

In the midst of me watching Tenta, Terrell reached an arm over to the radio and turned up the volume and played our favorite station, one that plays R&B. It was a family favorite, all of us liking the same songs that would play on the station, and sometimes we’d sing along on good days. We weren’t feeling that spirit, but I could notice Alyssa tapping her finger to the beat and humming as she scrolled down her social media as well as Terrell lightly nodding his head.

I turned my gaze back to Tenta and saw him gently swinging his head from side to side, a relaxed smile on his face and his eyes closed. His tentacles were bouncing around in his ponytail; I constantly have to restrain myself from messing with them when I see them bobbing. I couldn’t help but grin at the sight of Tenta enjoying the music so deeply, as though he were completely immersed into the song like his ink. It was adorable, everything in his appearance was adorable, his actions only emphasizing his cuteness. Eventually the song ended and he stopped, continuing to look out the window of the car and gaze at the flat lands we called home. I was disappointed, slightly, and went back to looking at my phone.

After a while we made it to the clothing store when the sun was long gone. I instructed Tenta to hop back into the bag in squid form, the inkling doing so with a grumpy squeak. “Snappy, are you?” I muttered under my breath, zipping the bag up but leaving a hole he could see out of. I slung the bag around my shoulder and headed inside with my two family members and squid.

We had spent some time in the store, going to different sections and checking out all the clothes. I would hold up the bag that held Tenta in my hands as we walked around, and whenever we heard excited squeaking we could tell he caught his eye on something. He squeaked a lot.  _ A lot _ . We ended up getting a rather big array of clothing, going from flashy t-shirts to monochrome pants, an inkling with no simple fashion sense he was. Half the shirts we got for him had text on them, we hadn’t even taught him to read yet and he was insistent on it.

The clothes store was closing soon and we’ve already gotten enough weird looks with all the squeals and squeaking coming from my bag, so we eventually headed out of the store, bags full of clothes for all four of us but mostly Tenta. I could feel the school bag in my arms aggressively wiggle around, Tenta eager to get out and look at all his clothes we just got him. It’s a wonder how Terrell manages to make so much money at one job to be able to afford this and so much more.

When we got home we set the bags on the floor of the living room, all of us giving collective sighs. I went to unzip my school bag, and as soon as I did so Tenta came springing out of the bag, excited to see all of his clothes that we got for him. He launched himself towards the shopping bag that carried most of his clothes, taking out each of the random garments and looking over them with eager eyes, not sure what he wanted to try on first. Terrell chuckled, walking over and yanking the clothes out of Tenta’s hands, the squid boy producing a small whine.

“You’ll be able to choose what you want to wear tomorrow, but first you need to shower and put on some pajamas. It’s almost eleven, little man.” He stated, picking out some yellow button-up pajamas in the bag and handing them to a grumbling Tenta. The inkling took the clothes and trudged his way up the stairs to the bathroom, Salt following him and mewling quietly. We amusedly watched him until he left our sights, so then we began putting away the clothes to our separate rooms and drawers.

I was messing with google translate on my laptop in my room, typing in random gibberish and laughing when I heard the pronunciations, when I heard a distant screech, no doubt from Tenta in the bathroom. I glanced up towards my bedroom door, before sighing and backspacing to rid the translator of my current word, “booshieploosh”, in case Alyssa came in while I was gone to snoop on there. She was the blackmail  _ queen. _

I was walking to the bathroom when I heard Tenta screech again, sounding startled. Rolling my eyes, I made it to the bathroom door and knocked, calling out to the inkling inside and asking him if he needed help. There was a slight pause before Tenta opened the door, covered in nothing but a towel around his waist. With the bandages all over his body now removed by Alyssa, I could get a clear view of the scarring. Unfortunately he didn’t give me much time to really examine them, as he glanced up at me for a moment before taking one of my hands and yanking me inside the bathroom.

I yelped as he tugged me inside, the force behind his pull surprisingly weaker than I expected but it still startled me. “You could’ve just said I could come in, y’know,” I sarcastically muttered, Tenta paying no mind to my attitude. “And your hand is wet! Could’ve dried it off first…”

He ignored my muttering and instead pointed at the water coming from the shower head, “That?”

I glanced at him for a moment, before looking back at the shower, “You mean the water?”

“Wa-wat-ah?” He stuttered, confusion spreading across his face. He reached forward and held his hand out in front of the water raining down from the shower head, yelping when the liquid splashed against his skin.

“Tenta no watah!” He exclaimed with disgust as he shook his hand to flick the water off, “Watah bad! No! No!!”

“Why’d you stick your hand in the water if you knew you didn’t like it?! Even then, why don’t you like the water?” I questioned him, taking my hands and cuping them then collecting water from the shower. Once I had a decent amount, I pulled back my hands and showed Tenta the water in them.

“Water’s good. See? It’s fine.” I tried to reassure him. He wasn’t having it though, shaking his head and huffing through his nose. Stubborn bastard.

“C-Clea...clean no watah?” He asked, reaching to turn the shower off.

I gave him an odd look as I dumped the water back in the tub, “How the hell are you gonna get yourself clean with no water?”

He hesitated and shrunk back, “...I dunno. Tenta have no watah at bath...ink. Ink bath.”

Ink bath? “Ink bath??”

He nodded, “Ink bath! Clean at ink, good ink, no...it- uh…” He scrunched up his face, frustrated from his lack of English vocabulary. “Bath...clean Tenta. Ink bath clean. No know more word. C-Com...comp...compli-complica…”

“Complicated?” I finished for him, surprised that he managed to figure out the meaning of that long ass word in just a couple of days.

“That! Yes! Hard...say that Tenta think. Teach Tenta English more, please!”

I pointed to the tub, “You gotta get clean first.”

“No!”

“Tenta!” I exclaimed in exasperation, “You gotta get clean!”

“Soap, no water! No, no, no!!”

_ “Tentaaaaa.”  _ I whined, trying to pull the inkling into the tub with one of his arms. I had to get him clean sooner or later and I was leaning toward the ‘sooner’ side as I grew more and more impatient.

_ “No! _ ” He shrieked as he scrambled to resist my pull. “Tenta like no watah! Will-ee, stop! No!”

“It’s just water! I’m pretty sure you won’t die if you take a shower in it! How do you even get clean with an ‘ink bath’? We don’t have those here, you gotta use water!”

“No! Uh... _ Fuck you! _ ” Tenta screeched moments before leaning forward and chomping down on my hand, his sharp fangs digging into my flesh with little issue.

I yelped in pain and struggled to get Tenta to let go, trying to pry his jaw open with my other hand. After a few moments, the inkling opened his jaw and stepped back, wiping away the blood dripping from his mouth with the back of his hand as he glared up at me.

“You little  _ bastard! _ ” I shrieked in disbelief, watching the wound on my hand grow more and more red with more blood seeping out of it than I had ever seen before in my life. What the  _ fuck  _ is up with that inkling?

Suddenly, we both heard knocking from the door.

“Will? Tenta? Are you okay? I heard yelling, is something up?” Terrell asked in heavy concern as he knocked. “Are you hurt or anything?”

“Ah…” I started as I struggled to think up an excuse, “Um, we’re just fine! I accidentally scraped my hand against the corner of the sink and I’m bleeding a bit but I’m good! Just gotta bandage it up!”

“Do you need any help with the bandages?”

I looked down at Tenta, who was staring up at me with a sly smirk. I cupped my uninjured hand over his mouth and shoved him into the shower, holding him down despite his intense squirming.

“No, I’m good! We’re just fine! Thanks!”

“How’s Tenta, is he okay?”

Tenta did his best to yell from behind my hand, but it fell on deaf ears and I fortunately wasn’t going to get in trouble. He desperately tried to pry my hand off of his mouth, his fingers digging into my skin as he struggled. He was definitely making this a lot harder than it needed to be.

“Oh...Uh, yeah, he’s fine! Just helping him work the shower and showing him where the first aid is!”

There was a pause.

“Oh, alright! Call me if you need anything.” Terrell eventually stated, prompting a sigh of relief from me as I continued to hold a still very much struggling Tenta down inside the bathtub.

I waited for a moment to make sure my brother had gone away, then released my hold on Tenta. He gasped for air and launched himself out of the tub, landing on the bathmat and glaring up at me with the biggest death glare I’ve ever seen on an inkling.

He stood there, covered in rapidly cooling water and was starting to shiver, but refused to move. He was definitely pissed, his hands were holding the towel around his waist in a deathgrip and his ears were twitching ever so slightly.

I put on a sly, mocking grin, “See? You’re not dead. You’re clean now!”

Tenta didn’t respond, averting his gaze to the floor. Water slowly traveled down his body and pooled into the bathmat, yet he wasn’t moving.

I sighed, guilt starting to creep up in my stomach, “Look, you had to get clean one way or another, and water’s the only way to do it here.”

“ _ Fuck you. _ ” He spat in a harsh tone. Despite only knowing one phrase involving an English curse word, he knew how to use it really well and it didn’t help at all to fight back the guilt.

I threw my hands in the air in exasperation, “Okay! Fine. I’m sorry. Whatever. We probably could’ve found another way to get you clean but I made a rash decision and did something stupid. ‘M sorry.”

Even though he only recognized the word ‘sorry’, Tenta still smiled and gave me a thumbs up to let me know he accepted it. He didn’t seem too happy about being wet, but it looked like he was ready to put it past him and just move on. I was grateful for that, to be honest.

Eventually, I wrapped bandages around my bitten hand and stepped out the bathroom to give Tenta some time and privacy to dry off and get his clothes on. To get myself together after that bit of a mess, I slapped my hands onto my face and dragged them down slowly as I walked to my room.

In the middle of my stride, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and force me to turn around. I was blessed with the horrid sight of my sister.. She had her glasses on, but her hair was let loose instead of a bun and she was dressed in a yellow nightgown.

“The fuck happened to your hand?” She asked, grabbing my injured hand without giving me much warning and examining it. “The bandaging on this is awful but not the most ineffective, did you do this?”

“Yeah, I did.” I muttered, “What do you want? I’m going to bed.”

Alyssa crossed her arms over her chest, “I don’t want anything. Terrell just told me to tell you that Tenta’s bunking in your room tonight.”

I did a double-take, “I’m sorry,  _ what? _ ”

She waved her hand around in a discarding manner, “Somethin’ about washing the sheets since he stunk them up pretty bad. You’ll live.”

I performed an exaggerating groan and slouch to show how truly upset I was at this misfortune, “Why can’t he sleep in your rooooom?”

“My room’s cluttered enough as it is.” She snapped, “Plus, Pepper likes to wander in there during the night and I don’t think Tenta would take that too well.”

“Well then, why not Terre-”

“Will, you’re the asshole the inkling’s hung out with for the most and seems to trust. You can handle one night of the inkling snoozing in your nasty, boy room.” Alyssa huffed as she turned on her heel and made her trek back to her room around the corner.

After a pause, she stepped back out into the hallway. “Plus, would  _ you  _ wanna sleep in the room of the biggest, roughest looking family member in the house?”

I gave it some thought, “Well, if there was a burglary I could use the biggest and strongest person t-”

“Nevermind.” My sister rolled her eyes, “But, yeah, don’t do anything stupid. You don’t have many friends, but the ones you do have, you made quick. Knowing you, you and that inkling would probably destroy this place once you became buds or whatever.”

“Probably not considering he decided to sink his teeth into my goddamn hand…”  I muttered under my breath.

“He bit you?”

I stared at Alyssa. 

She stared at me.

I stared at Alyssa.

She stared at me.

….

“Nah.”

“Will. you  _ just said- _ ”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did he really bite you? Is that what the bandages are for?”

“What bandages?”

“Will, I am  _ this close  _ to walking back over to you and smacking the shit out of you.”

“What did I do??”

_ “Will.” _

I barked out a laugh as my sister grew more frustrated with my bullshit. She growled and folded her arms, irritation setting in as she tapped her foot against the carpet..

She turned back toward her room and let out a sharp sigh. “Fine! Be like that. I’ll be in my room where you won’t be gaslighting me. ‘Guess that’s what I get for being concerned.”

“G’night!”

She didn’t say g’night back.

I ran my hand through my hair as I walked back to my room. First my finger, and now my goddamn entire hand, that inkling really needs to calm his teeth. Or fangs. Beak? Squids have beaks. He really needs to calm his beak.

As soon as I stepped into the room, I felt something rush past me and watched as the now clothed Tenta sped toward the bed and belly-flopped onto it with a loud whoop of joy. He bounced once, then twice, and then he lay flat on the mattress with his face shoved into the sheets.

After a pause, he looked up at me and flashed a quick grin, chirping something in a happy tone. His yellow button-up pajamas seemed to fit him a little loosely, but he didn’t look like he minded it much. In fact, he seemed to love it, the fabric  _ did  _ look pretty soft and smooth.

As he wrapped my blankets around himself, I grabbed my toothbrush and then went over to chose my pajamas for the night. He stared curiously as I sifted through the different shirts I could potentially wear to bed, until I eventually chose a washed out, yellow shirt and dark green sweatpants.

Tenta proceeded to make the most loudest, disgusting, exaggerated gagging sound I had ever heard in my entire  _ life.  _ In the moment, I thought he was dying. Literally.

I glanced over to him after my initial panic faded away and realized that his eyes were on my pajamas. I looked down at them and checked to see if there was some sort of bug on them that had crawled in my drawer and died or something, but I didn’t see any cockroach legs or exoskeleton. Shrugging, I made my way to the door and left Tenta to deal with whatever crisis is going on with him.

_ “No! No, no no no no no no no no!!!!”  _ I heard him nearly shriek, and whipped back around to see him clambering out of the blankets and off of the mattress. He had a panicked look on his face as he sprinted to me and yanked the clothes out of my hands with a firm tug.

“Hey!” I yelled, trying to make a grab to steal my pajamas back. He wasn’t having it, though, and promptly threw the clothes into the trash can by the door. Y’know, the trash can that is full of discarded plastic bottles of half drunk soda that’s spilt everywhere in there. That one.

I stared in disbelief at the trash can for a couple of seconds, then glared at Tenta, who wasn’t even paying attention. Instead, the fucker had reopened the drawers and was urgently looking for something in them, taking out random shirts and discarding them by throwing them to the floor.

“What are you even doing?” I asked desperately with my hands clenching the sides of my head, trying to understand what the hell was taking place here. 

Eventually, Tenta backed away from the drawers with two pieces of clothing: a dark grey tanktop and black sweatpants. He seemed pleased with the clothes in his arms, a large smile on his face as he looked down at them in his hands. Then, he stared up at me and promptly shoved them into my chest.

“Wghh!” I choked in surprise as the clothes were thrusted into my arms, adjusting my stance to deal with the shove. “What’s this for? Why do you want me to wear these? And why the hell did you throw away my other clothes?!”

Tenta shrugged, “Ugly.”

I took in a deep breath, opened my mouth to begin to say something I thought that made sense but really didn’t, and then closed my mouth because I had just remembered trying to reason with an asshole who wasn’t multilingual would make me look even dumber.

I sighed in defeat, “Fine. Sure, I’ll wear these clothes if it makes you happy.” There goes one of my favorite sets of pajamas in the trash.

As I left the room, I heard Tenta let out a large whoop of joy and then what presumably seemed to be him belly-flopping right back onto the bed. Still feeling a little disgruntled, I shook my head and huffed through my nose as I stepped into the bathroom to do my business.

Once I was done, I stepped out of the bathroom and walked back to my room, noticing that all the lights in the house were off except mine. That was Terrell’s code for ‘please stay in your rooms or I’ll think you’re a burglar because it’s dark and I’m tired’. I yawned as I approached the doorway, ready to get some shuteye in.

Stepping into the room, I saw Tenta sitting on my bed and also Salt there with him. The inkling was laying on his stomach, hands reaching out in front of him and gently scratching the top of the kitten’s head. He cooed at her in his language, murmuring quietly as he moved from scratching her behind the ears to underneath her chin. She was meowing in delight through it all, her blue eyes closed in bliss as her white tail gently swirled and curled around.

I stood and watched for a little bit, choosing to let Tenta have his fun with the kitten for a little bit. They kept on for a short time more, until Tenta began to doze off in the midst of petting Salt and his head started slumping to the side. Salt recognized that he was falling asleep and meowed one last time before hopping off the bed and zooming out of the room, most likely to join Pepper in wandering around the house late at night and passing out who knows where.

Turning my gaze back to Tenta, I could tell that he was almost totally gone, the only thing letting me know he was awake was him still murmuring something in his language, but the speech was slurred and occasionally stopped once in a while. It would pick up again eventually, but much quieter and slower than before as the fight to resist sleep eventually died off.

Gently closing the bedroom door, I shut off the lights and put my glasses on top of my dresser as I prepped myself for bed. I walked up to my bed and slowly pulled the blankets over Tenta’s back and over his shoulders to protect him from the nightly cold. I flinched when his ear twitched, but after a second of holding my breath and keeping still, I managed not to accidentally wake him up and exhaled a silent sigh of relief.

I looked around the room for a second blanket, planning to sleep on the carpet floor since Tenta had taken ownership of the bed. I was going to give it to him anyway, since it always felt wrong to me to take up the bed while the guest took the floor. I wasn’t able to find a blanket, so I just groaned and laid down next to the bed with nothing to cover me. It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t overly chilly and I didn’t mind the carpet. It was soft. Dirty and gross since I always forgot to clean it, but soft.

Shifting into a comfortable position, I closed my eyes and slowly embraced the dream world.

* * *

 

“GAK!” I yelped as someone stepped onto my chest. That certain someone yelped and tripped, flopping to the floor with a loud thump. Rubbing the sore area on my chest with my hand, I sat up and did my best to rub my eyes away of their sleepiness.

“...Tennnt?” I mumbled, focusing my eyes on the dark shape just inches away from me sprawled out on the floor. Tenta groaned and slowly propped himself up on his arms, pushing himself to his feet and turning around to meet my gaze.

He blinked in surprise, “Will-ee?”

“Thas’ me.” I sighed, “Why are you awake?”

“Um…” He glanced off to the side with a sheepish smile, “B-bath...rooooom?”

I groaned, “You could’ve done that without tripping over me. Don’t you inklings have night vision or something?”

Tenta tilted his head, “Eh? V-visson?”

I shook my head and waved my hand toward the door, “Go, do your business and be quick about it.”

The inkling nodded and without further hesitation, rushed out into the hallway and into the bathroom. With the slam of the door and the click of the lock, I immediately collapsed back down onto the carpet and slowly exhaled, bringing my hands to my face and dragging them down in slight exasperation. I was still so goddamn  _ tired _ and getting my sleep interrupted was the best way to get me irritated.

Tenta soon came back to the doorway and still looked pretty tired too. He was rubbing his eyes and yawning, but quickly tried to perk himself up once he noticed me staring at him.

“Goodnigh...” He said quietly as he turned back into the hallway, missing the t at the end of the sentence. He was leaving. Where was he going?

“Where are you going?” I asked him in the midst of his departure. He turned around and gave me an odd look, tilting his head to the side yet again.

“Where?....Uh…” He made a funny face as he thought up his response, puffing his cheeks and furrowing his brow, “Tenta...sleep at Tenta bed.”

I shook my head, remembering that I never gave him the memo, “You’re sleeping in my bed tonight. Your sheets are getting washed.”

He made a confused noise, “Tenta sleep at Will-ee bed?”

“Yeah.”

Tenta murmured something to himself, “...Will-ee sleep at Will-ee bed. Tenta sleep at...in floor.”

“Nooo.” I chided him while shaking my head, “You sleep on the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor. You-” I pointed at the bed, “-will sleep up there. I-” I pointed at the carpet, “-will sleep down here. Got it?”

“No!”

I groaned, “Tentaaaa.”

“Tenta sleep in floor!” He stated with a determined tone, staring at me in the eye with a firm glare.

I pointed at the bed,  _ “Please _ get up there and go back to sleep.”

He decided to be a copycat and pointed at the bed himself, “Will-ee sleep!”

_ “Tenta.” _

With one cheerful “fuck you!” Tenta plopped down right onto the floor next to me, let out an extremely FAKE yawn, and pretended to be asleep. He even gave a couple fake snores to really look the part.

“Tenta,  _ please  _ get on my bed.” I pleaded, to which the fucker responded with an extremely loud, obnoxious snore. Alright, we’re doing this the hard way.

Standing up, I briskly bent down and picked up Tenta bridal style in one swoop. He yelped in shock, and I didn’t give him enough time to fight back before I threw him face-first onto the bed. Once the inkling got a pleasant face-full of blankets, he stood up and turned around, looking pissed.

My response was to grab him by the face, hold him down despite his struggling, and frantically wrap the blankets around his body. That doesn’t sound right. I’m doing this out of pure generosity, I swear.

When I finished, I stepped back to admire my handiwork. Tenta was wrapped up haphazardly in a cocoon made of a single blanket, the only part of his body showing being head. One of his ears was pinned underneath the blanket while the other was out, giving him a funny and uneven look. Tenta himself was pouting, his cute, pink cheeks puffed out and everything. He looked adorable, and to have bested him like this was one of the greatest feelings ever.

I flashed him a cocky grin, “Goodnight, Tenta!”

_ “Noooooo.” _ He whined with a defeated tone hinted in his voice, struggling against the cocoon wrapped around him but to no avail.

I could hear him huff and strain to break himself free from the cocoon as I laid back down on the carpet, but I knew he wasn’t getting out anytime soon.

Knowing that I won in this argument, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.


	6. water guuuns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the protags take a dip in the pool!!!

Feeling gentle hands shake me awake, I sleepily blinked open my eyes, realizing the light in my room was on. The culprit who was waking me up was blurry thanks to my bad sight, but I could tell it was my sister. I yawned, about to sit up, but I felt her push on my chest, keeping me down.

“Alyssa, what the hell-”

“ _ Shhh. _ Tenta’s next to you and still sleeping.” She looked over to my left, and sure enough, Tenta was sleeping soundly right next to me. His chest slowly rose up and down with each breath he took in and exhaled, the little fucker must’ve made his way out of bed when he was sure I was asleep. I gaped at the sight for a moment, before shaking my head slowly and looking back up at Alyssa.

“ _ What the hell do you want, ‘Lyss? _ ” I whispered, rubbing my eyes to rid them of their sleepiness.

She looked back at Tenta, before looking at me in the eye, “Let’s go in the pool today.”

I threw my head back and groaned, “‘Lyss, you know I’m not that much of a swimming person.”

She laughed, “I know I know, but I invited Cassidy and Miles to come and hang out with us in the pool for a while.”

“ _ What?! _ ” I hissed, before covering my mouth with a hand and looking down at Tenta to see if he woke up. He stirred slightly and rolled over on his stomach, but other than that he was still sleeping like a baby.

Alyssa punched me in the arm because of my fuck up, before reassuring me, “Chill, you know those two so well, you shouldn’t even be nervous about Tenta being seen by them. They’re our friends, best friends as a matter of fact, plus they know how to keep secrets. Cassidy may be a blabbermouth but she wouldn’t  _ dare _ utter a secret unless given permission. Miles is quiet enough as it is, I’d doubt he’d say much. You told him so many secrets all the time I lost count.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, “How did you know that I-”

“Plus...I already... maybe sorta kiiiiinda somehow toldthemaboutTentaalready?” She spoke the last part quickly and quietly, but I knew what she was going to say as soon as I heard the first word come out of her mouth.

Sighing roughly, I pinched the bridge of my nose, “You know what? Fine. I accept this. When are they coming over?”

“Right now, actually.”

I stared up at her with a blank expression.

“...Get out of my room.”

She left with a giggle, rushing out of my room and into the hallway. She stood to where I could fully see her in the doorway, and I could see that she was wearing blue goggles on her forehead and a yellow two-piece swimsuit. Or I assumed anyway, as she was a blurry mess since I wasn’t wearing my glasses. “I’ll see you in ten!”

Rolling my eyes, I fully sat up and started to stretch my arms after being asleep for so long. I glanced down at Tenta, giving a squid a gentle rub on his head (the part not scarring up, mind you), before standing up and grabbing my swim trunks from one of my dresser’s drawers and glasses, heading into the bathroom to change. I normally would’ve done it in my room but with Tenta in there?  _ No _ . No matter how heavy of a sleep he was in, I wasn’t going to risk it.

Exiting the bathroom with my trunks on, I made my way down the stairs and towards the backyard to where the pool was at. I saw Terrell on my way out, the man standing in the kitchen and cooking up an omelet for himself to consume.

“Hey, Will! You didn’t tell me Tenta was done showering last night, so I had to come up and take his clothes while you two were sleeping. I thought the both of you were going to share the bed, I didn’t think you two would share the floor.”

“Sorry, bro. I was going to tell you but Tenta distracted me with his assholeness. I tried to make him take the bed and I take the floor for the night, but he snuck out in the middle of the night and went to sleep right next to me.”

Terrell hummed, “Sounds like he considers you a good friend already.”

I rolled my eyes, “I doubt it. The little fucker was just trying to be one of those guests that reject your generosity.”

My older brother shrugged as he poked at the omelet with his spatula, “Seems odd that he’d sleep right next to you if he was simply disregarding your generosity.”

“ _... _ .” I turned on my heel and walked away, choosing to opt out of the conversation and make my way out into the backyard. I heard Terrell laugh behind me, the sizzle of his omelet cooking clear in my ears.

Once outside, I looked up and found a couple lingering clouds. I checked the weather channel yesterday, so I knew a rather big storm was going to happen later on in the day today. It was still safe to go swimming for now, so I had no worries.

“William!” I heard from my left, and I turned to see Alyssa entering the backyard wooden gate with our two friends, Cassidy and Miles. They both waved at me, Cassidy’s wave was hyperactive and eccentric while Miles’ wave was small and calm. The three of them walked over to me, stepping over the grass with bare feet and meeting me on the pavement.

Cassidy was a sixteen year old caucasian girl with blond hair, her bright and blonde hair hugging itself around her head in little waves. Her face was decorated with freckles, and her green eyes sparkled with excitement and mischief. Miles was her slightly younger step-brother, fifteen years old, pale and blank but wise. His choco-brown hair was smooth and curled at the edges, and his eyes were chestnut unlike his sister’s. They were both wearing their own swimsuits, Cassidy wore a blue one piece with frills at the bottom to form a little skirt, and Miles wore swim shorts that showed off sharks, a sea animal he was fond of.

“Sooo, where’s the little squid dude? Alyssa’s told me and Miles so much about him!” Cassidy asked, looking around for the annoying little shit.

I nodded my head towards the house, “He’s in my room sleeping, he’ll probably be up soon but I don’t guarantee that. One time he went to bed at ten and woke up at noon.”

Cassidy’s eyes lit up, “Wow! Talk about a heavy sleeper! Oh yeah, speaking of heavy sleepers, I once found a post online about this one dude who liked to lift weights so much he started doing it in his sleep! He was a bodybuilder who had sleepwalked all his life until he-”

“Okaaaay let’s go swimming!” I quickly interrupted her before she went further. She paused for a moment, before nodding eagerly and heading towards the pool. She halted in her stride, then turned back to me.

“Where’s the pool toys at, again?”

I pointed towards a small structure at the far corner of our backyard, “Over there in that small shack. We don’t use the toys all that much unless our little cousins come over for a visit, or unless we just want to lay down in the sun on those big floaties.”

“Cool! I’ll go grab some floaties and noodles, and maybe some water guns too. We all could have a full on brawl!”

Alyssa clapped her hands and whooped, before tugging her goggles over her eyes and jumping into the pool without a care. A large splash of water washed over Miles and I, although I was the only one who was ticked off. ‘Lyss soon resurfaced, shaking her head slightly and looking back over at us.

“Come in! The water’s great today!”

There was no need to tell Miles twice, for he jumped in soon after. I was about to myself, but when I got a good look at the water, I froze. The swirling waves caught me off guard, and for some strange reason I felt almost intimidated by them. I quickly shook the feeling off and jumped in right after Miles, mentally dismissing the feeling as I felt the water take me in.

I resurfaced just in time to see Cassidy toss in the floaties and noodles. One of them almost landed on my head, but instead it barely nicked me on the side of my ear, and it plopped onto the water and began floating to the ripples we made. Cassidy laid the water guns she collected on the pavement beside the pool, before jumping into the body of water as well, her long blond hair blowing in the temporary wind as she descended.

Her large splash washed over all of us, making the three of us spit and sputter for a moment. We all then started splashing Cassidy in the face, who in turn thrusted her arms to wash big splashes upon all of us.

Our antics kept up like this for a while, until we all grew tired and started chilling in the pool. Alyssa, Cassidy and I were all resting on big floaties, while Miles was absent-mindedly going around the pool in a ring floatie. Cassidy suddenly sat up from laying in the sun.

“Hey! Is that the inkling you’ve been talking about, ‘Lyssy?” She asked, adding Alyssa’s nickname she called her at the end of her statement.

Sure enough, it was Tenta, the inkling silently walking into the backyard. I noticed that he was wearing yellow swim shorts as well, Terrell probably suggesting he should wear it. We all grew silent at his approach, and watched him as he looked down at all of us from the pavement.

Suddenly, Cassidy squealed, “Oh my gosh! He’s even cuter than you said he was, ‘Lyssy! I’m  _ soooo _ jealous that you get to have an inkling in your house!” She slid off the floatie and moved towards the edge of the pool, climbing up the side Tenta was at.

“Hey cutie! It’s very nice to meet you after all this time! You’re so adorable, I wanna squish your cheeks so bad!!” She squeaked, wringing out the water in her blond hair.

Tenta stared up at her for a moment, before looking around her and towards me, “Who?”

I pointed towards the overeager girl, “Cassidy. Her name is Cassidy.”

He looked back up at her and reached out a greeting hand, “Hi, Cass-ee-tee.”

She took his hand and shook it slowly and gently, “Hello, Tenta, you’re very cute.”

He nodded slowly, stepping away from her and towards the edge of the pool. He sat down on the edge and closed his eyes, basking in the warm sunlight. Cassidy giggled at the sight, stepping around him and climbing down one of the ladders into the pool. She swam over to me, whispering a question into my ear:

“Can Tenta join us in the pool?”

I went to answer with a no, but she already swam a small distance away from me, opening her arms wide with a large smile on her face.

“Tenta! Jump into my arms! Please!”

He glanced up at her, shaking his head and closing his eyes once more, just wanting to appreciate the sunlight. Cassidy tried to give the command again, but was ignored.

I watched her failure with amusement, turning to her and saying, “Lemme try.”

Alyssa raised a brow, “You do know that inklings can’t swim, right? It’s common knowledge.”

I looked over at her with a challenging grin, “Well, since he took a shower last night, I can conclude that it’s not that they  _ can’t _ swim, it’s that they  _ don’t want _ to swim. Inklings are not just hydrophobic by body, but also by mind.”

“Are you implying that inklings just can’t swim due to their attitude on water?” She asked, her sassy tone returning slightly.

“ _ Exactly _ .” I confirmed, turning to Tenta.

“Tenta! C’mon, jump into my arms.” I clapped my hands, opening my arms wide and looking at Tenta expectantly. The inkling opened his eyes and looked over at me, shaking his head no and frowning.

I said the command again, this time with different results. He glanced over at where I was positioned and at everyone else. He stood up, unsure if he wanted to go back inside or follow my command, hesitation clearly evident from his body language. Cassidy gasped, uttering the word  _ jealous _ under her breath, before growing quiet once more.

I said the command again and again, and slowly but surely Tenta made his way over to the literal edge of the pool, looking in with fearful eyes. I clapped my hands and opened my arms wide, knowing that he knew that I wouldn’t kill him on purpose.

“I’ll catch you, trust me on this.”

Tenta looked down at the water, before looking right back at me. He bent down slowly and backed up a bit, before launching forward and landing in my arms, where I caught him successfully.

My sister and our two friends whooped and cheered at the action, and I looked at Tenta in my arms with a wide smile. He was grasping my arms uncomfortably tight, and shivering lightly, but he was okay. He looked up at me, and while I could see a lot of fear in his eyes, I also saw trust. I guess we _were_ a little past the acquaintance stage and had moved onto being trusting friends despite our language barrier.

I grinned at the inkling, happily whispering in his ear, “Good joooob.”

He gave a small smile back, though it quickly went away when he saw Cassidy messing with the floaties. He pulled himself closer to me, the both of us knowing the only reason he was in this pool was me, myself, and I.

Cassidy found what she was looking for, a ring floatie. “Here it is! Now the little guy doesn’t have to worry about drowning!” She pushed the floatie on the water over to me and I managed to grab it after a small amount of waiting.

I looked down at Tenta, “Okay, dude, you gotta let go.”

“No.”

“Tenta, you gotta let go.”

“No.”

“Tenta.”

“No.”

“Tenta!”

“No!”

Sighing, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get him to let go of me. I grimaced, knowing he’ll put up a fight at what I’ll do next.

I slowly began prying his hands off my arms, and as soon as he noticed it, which was instantly, he started hissing and flailing and creating splashes everywhere. Cassidy and Alyssa winced while Miles just looked on with interest, until I managed to fully pry the inkling from my grip and put the floatie around his body.

Eventually Tenta managed to slowly calm down, though he still looked mega frightened and jittery, which I felt guilty about. His hands were tightly grasping the floatie, so tight I feared it might pop, but it managed to hold strong. He did his best to linger by my side, constantly reaching out a hand to grab my arm to hold. I reluctantly told him as simply as I could that I couldn’t stay with him the whole time in the pool, to which he grumbled angrily to himself.

After a while he grew quiet, watching us all hang out in the pool and not uttering a sound. He was calm after being in the floatie for so long, realizing that the object was keeping him afloat as long as he was in it. He still looked heavily uncomfortable, however, occasionally glancing at the water with wariness in his eyes.

Cassidy spoke up after she saw Tenta’s pitiful state, “Maybe we should let him get out? I thought that he’d be having fun at this point but he seems so scared of the water around him.”

I sighed in disappointment, knowing that she was right, “Yeah, we should let him get out. Tenta, do you want to get out?”

To our surprise, he answered with a small “no.”

“No?” Cassidy and I said in unison, looking at the inkling in surprise. He was quietly looking at the water, curiously swirling a finger in it. He looked up at us for a moment sighed, before turning his gaze back to the water and swirling two fingers in it this time.

Cassidy tilted her head, “Do you think he’s getting used to it?”

I shrugged, “Maybe? It’s possible he realized that water isn’t deadly as long as he doesn’t flip.”

“Or maybe he accepted that he’s stuck with you and is willing to accept death without hesitation.” Alyssa called from her floatie with a grin.

I rolled my eyes, swimming over to the pool’s ladder and climbing out. “Okay, I’m tired of being in the pool, let’s have a water gun fight or something.”

Cassidy clapped her hands, “Oh! I am  _ so _ in! Get ready to be annihilated! Miles, I know you’re my sibling, but there’s no friends and family in war. You’re all going  _ down _ .”

Miles shrugged at her comment and smiled before heading towards the pool ladder and climbing out too. Soon, everyone was out except for Tenta, who was watching us and wondering what was going on.

We all picked up different water guns, Cassidy and Alyssa chose the tiny guns that shot quick and short shots, while Miles and I took guns that required pumping but could squirt far and long.

I looked over at Tenta, who was curiously staring at the pile of leftover water guns on the ground.

“Tenta, you wanna play too?” I asked him, holding up my water gun.

A large grin spread on the tan inkling’s face and he slowly made his way over to the pool ladder, hinting that he wanted to join in. I walked up to the pool and reached over to gently push the floatie he was in over to the ladder to help him out, receiving a happy “thanks” in response.

Soon he was out of the pool, ditching the pool floatie and joining us on the grass. He looked down at the pile of guns, reaching down and picking up a water gun similar to Cassidy’s and Alyssa’s. He looked up at all of us and nodded, holding his gun as if it were his shooter in a turf war.

“Okay!” I announced to everyone, deciding to take charge, “This is a free for all. Everyone against everyone. The person who gets squirted the least in the next five minutes will get the leftover cookies in the fridge! Everyone ready?”

I got all nods.

“Let’s go!”


	7. water fiight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all the teens have a water fight and tenta reveals he's not really a tough kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for taking so long to update!! i've been tired and the school year's just started so i'm going a little slow :'00000c

The battle was on. All of us quickly backed away from each other, friendships didn’t exist anymore. We were all out for blood, ready to destroy our loved ones for the winning prize.

Cassidy acted first, whipping up her gun and dashing over to Miles, nailing him straight in the face. He shook his head free of the water and then lunged after his sister, catching her in the back when she tried to run away. She yelped in surprise, then spotted Alyssa rushing towards her.

“‘Lyssy! I thought we were friends!” She teased, running from my sister backwards, aiming her gun at the darker girl.

Alyssa cackled, “ _ There are no friends in war! _ ” She jumped towards Cassidy and shot her in the face, not before receiving a shot to hers as well. They both paused and wiped their faces off, before quickly backing from each other with distrust.

In the midst of watching them, I felt a squirt on the back of my head, the feeling slightly dulled due to my frizzy hair. I whipped around and spotted Miles with his gun pointed at me, a sly grin present on his face. Smirking, I pointed my gun right back at him, only to lose that smirk when he dived out of the way just in time. It was a one on one battle, I consistently shot at Miles and he consistently dodged my shots. The battle ended when I needed to pump my gun, Miles knowing that he had won. He grinned a wicked smile, and shot me in the face.

I backed away dramatically, arm draped over my head as I fell onto the grass ground, “How could this be?! I thought we were friends, Miles. Pals. Chums. Buddies. And you come and turn against me like this? How  _ dare _ you, Mi-ACK!”

I was cut short when I was sprayed in the mouth by the little squid asshole. Tenta.

Agitated, I aggressively pumped my gun and held it up to Tenta. I lunged at him, eager to land a hit on the little asshole, but he easily dodged out of the way. I landed and looked around for him, and in the midst of my search I felt water spray into my ear and yelped. Spinning around, I saw Tenta laughing obnoxiously, gun pointed straight at me.

I kept attempting to land hits on the little dude, but time and time again he’d jump out of the way and attack me in return. I knew that this was all just a game, but over time I slowly started growing irritated that I couldn’t land a hit on him, and soon I began targeting just him and him alone.

Tenta, however, was having the time of his life. Besides getting on my nerves, he would squirt Alyssa, Cassidy and Miles when they least expected it. The kid was nimble and agile, constantly attacking all of us over and over in quick succession due to his speed. They grew annoyed too, and quickly the battle went from a free for all to a four against one. Try as we might, we couldn’t get the inkling. He would easily dodge one shot and the next, clearly we weren’t a challenge to him.

I wheezed, my body had used up all the energy it had to attack the inkling, and now I had my hands on my knees and was hunched over. Then I fell to the ground below me. One by one I saw my friends collapse to the grass after me, except for Tenta, who was standing tall and above all of us with little to no fatigue. I don’t recall him ever getting hit, actually. Fucker.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I wheezed, “We have a winner….Tenta.”

Alyssa and Miles sighed in disappointment, while Cassidy whined and complained, “Okay, that wasn’t fair! He’s an inkling, he’s used to battling when it comes to shooters!”

I put a hand on my face, wiping the sweat from my brow, “We never said that he couldn’t play like a pro.”  _ Though we should’ve... _

Cassidy sighed, “True…”

I slowly began to stand up, stretching my arms and making my way over to the pool, “I’m gonna cool off in the pool and then head inside,” I then looked up at the thunderclouds hanging above, “Plus it’s going to rain ‘n thunder soon, so I don’t think we should stay out here for much longer anyway.”

Everyone looked up at the clouds and murmured their agreements, all of them joining me in the pool to cool off after the five minute battle. Except Tenta, who decided to just linger on the edge and dip his feet in.

We eventually cleaned up the pool toys and said our goodbyes to Cassidy and Miles, who left from the backyard gate, and headed inside. Terrell met up with us at the door, handing the three of us towels after he saw us coming inside from the sliding window.

“So, did you have fun?” He asked, ruffling my frizzy hair.

I nodded and looked back at Tenta, who had tightly wrapped the green towel he was given around himself, “Yeah, I had fun. Tenta had a blast and annihilated all of our asses. We had no chance for survival. He was too quick for us, we did our best and we hope you still think of us as your siblings.”

Terrell chuckled, “Rest in peace, you two. Congrats on your win, Tenta,” He congratulated, fondly patting the inkling on the back. He received a happy gurgling sound in reply, the inkling seeming proud.

Our older brother then looked at Alyssa and I, “You two should shower and wash your hair, both of your heads look like they’re growing bushes.”

Alyssa crossed her arms, “It’s not like you looked any better when you had your hair long, Terrell.”

Terrell shrugged his shoulders in amusement, “Heh, you’re not wrong. Anyway, go clean up, all of you. I’ll cook up some fish or something.”

As soon as Tenta heard the word ‘fish’, his ears sprung up and he looked at Terrell straight in the eyes with hunger. His stomach growled shortly after, the three of us knowing now that the inkling was immensely hungry. Thinking about it now, I completely forgot to eat today, since I headed outside before I even thought of food entering my mouth.

Alyssa and I looked at each other and quickly dashed for the bathroom, the both of us competing for who gets to shower first. Tenta paid no mind to us and walked to the living room, picking up a relaxing Salt and holding her in his arms. She grew a tiny bit since he arrived, from being able to fit in his hand to being able to fit in his arms. Tenta didn’t care what size she was, happily nuzzling the tiny kitten and stroking her soft, white fur as Alyssa and I shouted at each other while wrestling near the bathroom door.

After a while, the three of us were all freshened up. Tenta and I were in my room and on my bed, the inkling looking out the window as he ate the chocolate chip cookies he won and me on my laptop. He was nice enough to share a couple with me, though he still hogged the rest of them like a pig. I had taught him a couple of new words while we sat around, such as ‘thunder’ when the thunder rumbled and ‘lightning’ when Tenta saw the lightning strike something in the distance.

Tenta turned to me, crumbs decorating the border of his mouth. His pink tentacles were out of their usual ponytail, hanging by the sides of his head and swaying. He pointed to the window, which was now covered with little water droplets.

“Rain?”

I nodded, calmly listening to the rain patter against the roof of the house. Tenta looked back outside, watching the sky slowly darken as the clouds got thicker and the rain got harder. A flash of lightning startled him away from the window, and not far after a loud bang of thunder shook the house.

Tenta flinched at the noise and crawled along the bed over to where I was, peeking over my shoulder to spy on what I was doing.

“Mmm…”

I looked up from my laptop, “What? You need something?”

“Food? When food?”

I sighed, looking back at my laptop’s screen and sending a meme to a friend of mine online, “Terrell’s cooking fish, go down and watch him cook if you want, I don’t care.”

“Fish. Tenta eat fish,” He murmured under his breath, moving his way off the bed and into the hallway. I shrugged before laughing at a picture my friend online sent back. It was goddamn Splat Tim.

Eventually I grew bored of my laptop and shut it, setting it down on the floor of my bed. A boom of thunder made me jump in my seat, but I quickly got over it. Sliding off my bed, I slowly walked in the hallway and went downstairs, before heading towards the kitchen.

“Tenta, I told you enough times already, you’re not going to get this fish.” I heard my brother say with slight agitation.

“Fish! Give fish. Hungry.” No doubt that was Tenta, annoying my brother and demanding food.

“ _ No _ , Tenta. If you ask me one more time, I’ll only give you a single piece of fish instead of the three like I planned. Go play with Salt.”

I walked in just in time to see Terrell silently begging for death to take him and Tenta staring up at him with demanding eyes. A cutting board laid on the counter with large pieces of raw fish strewn upon it, each of them were neatly cut up.

“Fish! Tenta hungry. Fish! Fiiiiish!” Tenta insisted, not backing down despite the threat thrown at him. I winced, knowing that when Terrell said a threat, he was serious about it.

I spoke up, “Tenta, leave Terrell alone. He’s going to cook the fish and you’ll be able to eat soon, so stop bugging him about it.”

The inkling looked back at me with a pissed expression, before quickly nabbing three of the pieces of fish on the cutting board and dashing out of the kitchen. We both watched him dart out the kitchen door, the shock holding us still.

“Did he just…?” I heard Terrell whisper under his breath. Then he sighed, “Alright, fine then. If he wants to play that game, then so be it,” he turned back to the stove, “William, please go try to talk some sense into him. When you grab your plate of food make sure you don’t share any with Tenta. And make sure he sleeps in his room tonight instead of bunking with you, I know how he’s been getting attached to you.”

I awkwardly rubbed my neck, “Mmmkay. Do you want me to help you with anything?”

Terrell shook his head, “No no, just let me cook dinner. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

“Okay.”

Feeling a little guilty, I quietly stepped out of the kitchen and into the living room, where I spotted Tenta staring straight at me. His lime eyes followed my every move as I walked over to him.

“Terrell’s pissed at you, I hope you know that.”

He didn’t say anything. The raw fish in his hands stunk a bit, but he didn’t seem to care.

“He said that the fish in your hands is all you’re getting tonight. Which means you’re not going to get anything, because it’s raw. He also said that you’re sleeping in your own room tonight, whether you like it or not.”

A flash of disappointment appeared in his eyes, going away as fast as it appeared. Grumbling something under his breath, he reached up a hand holding the fish and…

Shoved them all right into his mouth.

I stood there frozen for a moment, wondering what the absolute  **_fuck_ ** this dude was thinking.

He chewed it up slowly and swallowed it, having the nerve to lick his lips. I gaped at the boy, before remembering that he was an inkling, a completely different species than us. Maybe they never lost their ability to eat raw food like we did?

“You...You know that the fish you just ate was  _ raw, _ like I just said, right?” I uttered quietly.

Tenta nodded knowingly, “Yes.”

“Alright, okay. Great, inklings are better than humans because they can eat raw shit. Wow. Great. You know what? I’m gonna ignore everything that has happened in the last five minutes. Follow me upstairs if you want, I couldn’t care less.”

I turned and made my way to the stairs, knowing that Tenta was following close behind like he usually did. We made it to my room, and a small meow confirmed that Salt had followed us up here.

We both sat and chilled in my room for a little while, the thunder getting louder and the lighting strikes brighter. Tenta was laying by my side with Salt in his arms, stroking the kitten quietly. I was tapping away on my laptop, having a conversation with a friend who had moved away to another state, when I noticed Pepper peeking in through the door. Salt wriggled out of Tenta’s arms, made her way over to Pepper and left the room with her while quietly purring.

I heard Tenta shift on the bed, and suddenly I could feel him messing with my hair. He played with the loose strands in my messy bun, curling them around his fingers and watching them in awe.

“This?” He asked me, tangling my hair in his fingers.

“Hair.” I replied quietly, before sitting up and spinning around on the bed. I felt my tangled hair tug against my head and winced in pain so I tugged it out of Tenta’s hands and fixed it back up. I reached up a finger and poked one of Tenta’s tentacles.

“Tentacle.”

He looked up at me and cupped his tentacle in his hand, “Ten-tenta...Tentacle.” A scowl spread on his face. The jig was up, I was done for.

“Will-ee name me tentacle?”

I put on a fake smile, “Uh, I think I heard Terrell call me so I think I’ll be downstairs seeyoulater-”

Dashing out of the room, I sprinted down the hallway and stumbled down the stairs. Darting into the kitchen, I could see Terrell putting the cooked fish onto separate plates that had their own sides of veggies. Noticing my arrival, he turned to greet me.

“William! Nice to be here on time, I was going to call you and Alyssa down to grab your plates, but if you want can you please take Alyssa’s plate to her room? Since you’re going to head back upstairs, I’m assuming.”

“Yeah, sure. Maybe shoving food in Alyssa’s mouth will quiet her sarcastic attitude,” I snickered, taking the plates in my hands and walking out of the kitchen with my older brother.

He gazed over at the plates in my hands, “Y’know, you could part-time as a waiter someday while you’re looking for extra money. You have a great sense of balance.”

I rolled my eyes, “As much as I’d like to work a job where the workers get shit from customers in return, I’ll pass. I’d rather work as a professional dog walker.”

Terrell shrugged, “You have a point, as fun as my old waiter job was, I’d really rather not go back to it. You could work at a place that has a good reputation of treating their waiters well, though.”

“Like what?”

My older brother hummed, “You could work at a casual cafe, perhaps? Where the neighborhood people would come in and take one to go and you could have a decent chat as they wait.”

I scoffed and stopped by the end of the staircase, “Talking to people is the last thing I want, but thanks for the suggestion.”

My brother shrugged again as I made my way up the stairs, “You need to start somewhere, little bro.”

I eventually made it to Alyssa’s room, knocking on her door and quietly waiting for her to open up.

“Who goes there?” I heard her grumble in a mock guard voice.

“It’s the big ‘n badass dragon who’s here to kill you and the queen,” I played along, “Open up and I’ll make your death a quick one.”

Without hesitation, Alyssa opened the door and looked at the plates of food, “Seems smart of a ‘big ‘n badass’ dragon who’s only five feet and something tall to have two plates of food and yet threaten to eat me.”

I shrugged, “True, but the more the merrier, am I right?”

Alyssa raised a brow, “You only say that saying when it comes to events regarding people, not food.”

I grinned, “In this case, people  _ are _ food, my food, and the event is a party in my stomach to celebrate getting digested.”

“Give me my food and leave.”

Snickering, I handed her a plate of food and watched her head to shut the door grumpily. Then she paused, looking directly at me in the eye with a confused expression.

“...Hm.”

“What?”

She waved her hand in dismissal, “Thought I saw something, g’night.”

I shrugged and walked to my room, shutting the door behind me with my foot once I was inside. Looking at the bed, I could see Tenta messing with my laptop. He was probably curious about it and wondering what was on it, but kept it shut to respect my privacy. He looked up at the sound of the door shutting, and immediately retracted his hands from the laptop. He looked like he was about to say something, but saw the food on my plate and halted.

He chirped something in his language, hopping off the bed and running straight to me, eyes never leaving the food on my plate.

I frowned, “You do know that I can’t give you anymore food, right? Terrell said so.”

Tenta murmured something, but kept his eyes glued to the plate. He then looked at me in the eyes, trying to pull a sad look and make me give him the food. I glared back and quickly walked around the inkling to the bed, not falling for his tricks. I could hear him give a sigh of disappointment, knowing that his plan had failed.

“Play the puppy-dog eye trick on me all you want, it’s just gonna fail.”

He gave me a look that seemed to ask  _ how do you know? _

“I have little baby cousins who use their cuteness to their advantage, I’ve hardened over the years.” I climbed onto my bed and opened up my laptop, taking a bite of my food as I scrolled over messages I received in my short time gone.

“Oh…” He whispered under his breath, following in my footsteps and climbing back onto the bed with me. Tenta gazed at my laptop screen over my shoulder, trying to spy on what I type and look at up there.

“You do know that you can’t read, right?” I asked him in amusement.

He hummed in return, eyes not leaving the screen. His ear twitched slightly, which I reluctantly admit that it was cute as hell, though it wouldn’t get past me. He suddenly snapped up, pointing to something on the screen and shouting something in his gurgly voice.

“...What?” I asked, looking to where he pointed. I froze, realizing my mistake.

It was a picture of an inkling girl. A drawing, to be precise, of a friend’s oc they drew themselves.

“...” I was unsure what to say that could decrease the pissed off level on Tenta’s face, “...I’ll give you all my food if you let me explain it later when you’re more fluent in English.”

...

I sighed in relief as Tenta gorged on my food, having dodged a  _ huge _ bullet right there. The little asshole just discovered that we know of his species, and now he seemed a little wary of me.

Alyssa, Terrell and I all came together and agreed that we wouldn’t mention anything about Splatoon to Tenta. We hid everything Splatoon related, the game case, the amiibos, posters and squid hats, everything. We didn’t really know what would happen. Would he grow mad at us? Would he explode? Would a black hole appear? Well, seeing as only one of those occurred I can decide that we’re not in any danger of something spontaneous happening.

Looking back at him, I could see the squid cleaning the plate with his tongue, pausing in his action when he noticed I was looking at him with amusement. He looked at me, then at the plate, then me again, then at the plate yet again. Then he shrugged, continuing to lick the plate and ignoring me in the process. I took the plate from him once I decided that the poor dish was getting harassed enough, setting it on the dresser where he’d have a slightly difficult time reaching it.

Grumbling softly under his breath, he flopped back on the bed and closed his eyes, content with the extra meal I provided him. I rolled my eyes and shut my laptop, putting it under my bed for it to charge into the morning.

A roll of thunder went through the house, the both of us being reminded of the storm outside the window. The lights flickered and I saw Tenta’s eyes snap right up at the overhead light in the room. His gaze was fixed upon it before he looked straight at me, unnaturally silent.

We kept the staring contest up for a while until I eventually grew a little unnerved.

“You okay?”

Tenta jumped upright as if I woke him from a nap with an airhorn. He looked down at his twiddling fingers for a moment, muttering quietly to himself, before looking back up.

“Tenta no like storm.”

I raised my brows, “You don’t like the thunderstorm?”

He nodded his head in confirmation, “Sleep hard when storm. Storm bad. Scary? Scary.”

I hummed, “Well, I’d offer you to sleep with me tonight but Terrell said that you needed to sleep in your own room tonight, and I already messed up one of the things he told me to do.”

Tenta shook his head rapidly, “No, no! Please, Will-ee? Tenta sleep in Will-ee room.”

Sighing, I reached over and picked up the inkling by the waist with an arm, who instantly began struggling. I quickly placed him outside my bedroom and grasped him by the shoulders.

“I can’t be caught breaking Terrell’s orders, okay? I fucked up one already and I’d really rather not fuck up another. Terrell seems like a nice guy, and he is, but he can be a _ very _ intimidating parent when it comes down to it. You and I would both get in deep, deep shit.”

Tenta held his mouth in a straight line, his eyes blank. He gave a curt nod and turned around to head to the guest room, not looking back.

“Goodnight.” I called after him, receiving a slammed shut door as a reply. Sighing, I turned around and walked back into my room to head to sleep. I shut the door behind me and locked it, lest Alyssa walk in and try to make me smack whipped cream all over my face yet again.

He’d be fine, probably just pissed that Terrell gave me those instructions in the first place.

Turning out the lights, I climbed in the bed and nestled myself into the covers. The pouring rain outside was pleasing to my ears, along with the thunder that shook the house occasionally. I let out a pleased sigh, letting my head slowly be swallowed by the pillow that sat under it.

...

I didn’t know when the knocking started, but I was woken up by it and I was a little ticked off. I sat up in bed in exasperation, looking at my bedroom door, which was the source of the noise. I decided to wait a little while to see if the knocking would stop. Y’know, like a smart person.

It didn’t. If anything, when the thunder clapped, it went faster and harder along with the occasional rapid fiddling with my doorknob. I groaned, swinging my legs over the edge of my bed and hopping to the cool carpet flooring of my room. Trudging my way over to the door, I fumbled with the door handle and unlocked it, turning the knob with a sleepy hand.

What would you know, it’s Tenta.

The inkling walked in without so much as a ‘hello’, hastily striding into my room and hopping onto my bed. He proceeded to shove the bed’s blankets over his head and mutter a quiet phrase.

“Goodnight.”

Too tired to go against his shit, I pinched the bridge of my nose and climbed onto my bed as well. I sighed roughly through my nostrils and nestled my way back into the covers, closing my eyes and happily making my way to dreamtown with the thunderstorm to guide me.

...He’s fucking crying isn’t he.

…

A sniffle.

_ Of course he is. _

I draped an arm over my face and sighed. Looking over at the lump next to me on the bed, I reached an arm over and pulled the blankets off his head. I could instantly see the tear tracks on his cheeks and his little runny nose. He looked up at me with his big and glossy lime eyes, probably scared he was going to be booted out.

My gaze softened at the sight and I sighed again, “Okay, come here,” I slowly reached over and took one of his hands and tugged it to motivate him. It took a moment, but he eventually scooted over in the bed. I wrapped a protective arm around his form and pulled him a little closer, rubbing his back reassuringly.

“You’re a terrified little shit, aren’tcha?” I murmured softly, moving my hand to stroke one of Tenta’s ears softly. He didn’t reply, but seemed to relax despite the storm outside the house.

“Makes me wonder why you’re so scared in the first place. Are inklings naturally afraid of storms? Is that it?”

I didn’t receive an answer. Instead, Tenta nuzzled his face into one of my pillows and yawned, too tired to stay up for much longer.

“Tenta want home.”

“...Hm?” I was caught off guard when I heard his voice in the midst of the rain outside.

He slurred his words slightly as he started dozing off, “Tenta want home. F-friend home. Tenta want them. Friend...p-pos…possibly want me. I...I be gone long. Very long.”

I sighed, wishing that he could speak to me more fluently, but I knew what he was trying to say.

“You miss them. Miss, not want,” I explained to the dozing inkling, “You miss your friends, your home.”

He nodded, “Tenta miss me friend, Will-ee. Tenta miss th-them..lots.”

I hummed, not sure how to reply.

He took a breath in, “Storm not scare inklings. Storm make me scare. Tenta a-am scare of storm...Very s-sssorry.”

I reached over and stroked his ear once more, “It’s not your fault you’re scared of storms, that’s perfectly okay. We all have our phobias.”

“Mmm....” He looked so tired. There was a glint in his drooping eyes, though, of happiness and trust. Is it normal for someone to be so trusting? An improvement from the crying mess he was earlier, at least.

That glint quickly went away however, as he was starting to fall under. He yawned and snuggled his face fully into the pillow, already fast asleep.

That left me time to sit and think.

All this time, Tenta probably was missing some important things back home. Does time here pass by differently than in the Splatoon universe? Does he have an apartment? Did he miss out on his rent? Are turf wars his only source of income? If he’s the most powerful rank, how tough really is this kid? He may not respond great to storms, but he has resilience.

I looked over at the snoozing inkling. His tentacles were flopped along with his head on the pillow, glistening in the moonlight outside. His breathing had evened out, his mouth wide open with drool leaking out the side onto the pillow below. What a loser.

_ Huh, must’ve stopped raining _ , I eventually came to realize, glancing at the lone window in my room next to my bed. I sighed and closed my eyes, disappointed that the rain was over but glad that Tenta was able to fall asleep. I sat in silence and pondered over Tenta’s predicament as the inkling snoozed next to me.

It must suck to be stuck somewhere where nothing is familiar to you. None of your friends or family there to help you out. Then again, couldn’t he have tried to contact them on his phone? Wait, no, he’d have no service. His phone is for a service that doesn’t even exist yet. I wonder what kind of apps he has on there, then again it’s probably dead since he’s been here so long. Is there a turf war app similar to our splatnet? Man, I wish I could just ask him without a goddamn language barrier.

My thoughts eventually trailed off as I dozed, and the night was calm.


	8. i'm pretty sure yall were expecting this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full bold quotes is inkling speech unless said otherwise. English names are not part of Inktonian language, so they’re not bold. I tried using Underlines for inkling speech but the look just didn’t sit right with me. Hope this isn’t too hard of a read!

The moment I woke up I knew immediately that something was off.

Blinking my eyes open, I yawned and smacked my mouth. I grimaced, practically tasting the foul morning breath that I was cursed to have every day. I looked to my side and noticed Tenta wasn’t there.

_ Probably downstairs eating breakfast _ , I thought. Pulling off my covers, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up like I always did every morning. 

At least, that’s what I was planning on doing. Instead, I fell to the floor as soon as my feet made contact to the ground. Confused, I tried to slowly rise back up and walk over to the mirror to see if anything visible happened to me, but I flopped right back onto the floor before I could take even one proper step. I was sore and weak and I had absolutely no clue why.

_ Okay, fine, we’re gonna crawl. _

Pushing past the humiliation, I slowly pushed myself on all fours towards the mirror, begging to whatever force is out there to not let Alyssa or Terrell walk in at this embarrassing moment. Mostly the former. Knees aching slightly from being on the carpet so long, I managed to make it to the mirror.

What I saw in the mirror? The answer may shock you.

Okay, not really. You know what I saw at this point, I’m sure of it. Let me give you a hint, it has brown skin, a big forehead, and purple tentacles tied up in a ponytail instead of a bun. Know what’s wrong with the picture? I’ll give you five seconds to guess.

Got it? No? I’ll give you five more seconds.

Ready? No? I’ll give you- Nah, I’m just messing with you.

I sat in shock at the reflection before me, disbelieving anything I was seeing was real. The inkling in the mirror had bright golden eyes and a black face mask around them, much like the rest of the inkling race. The “hair” he had on his head was purple and he had three main tentacles, two in his ponytail and one draping off the side of his head. The side of  _ my _ head.

I slowly lifted up my right arm, my reflection lifted up his left. I opened my mouth, and sure enough, the beak was there with all its white glory. I noticed that the inside of my mouth was purple, the same shade that matched my ink color.

When I lifted my arm I realized why I couldn’t walk. My muscles were weak, I didn’t know how to properly even take a step in this body. The proportions of an inkling are different than a human, plus they’re (we’re?) made of a completely different substance. I hoped I wouldn’t trip on my feet, but given that I’d made a ridiculous height change and my head, feet, and hands were larger, I’d probably have to relearn how to walk.

Groaning softly to myself, I leaned against the wall and shakily stood up on my two feet. I cautiously took a step forward, getting used to how my new feet worked. It all felt so  _ odd _ , like my limbs were made of jello or slime. I took another step forward, and then another, I wanted to get this walking thing under control. Running was another problem for another time.

Soon I was able to walk at a slow pace, but I couldn’t speed up without risking tripping over my own feet. Sighing, I slowly turned back to the mirror and looked at my outfit. My pajama shirt slung awkwardly over my shoulders, too big to fit properly. I had to ditch my pants to walk properly, given that they were too long for my short form now. My underwear I desperately tried to keep on, but I knew they were a size or more too big for me. They were hidden under my shirt anyway, so if I chose to walk out right now I’d be covered with no problem.

That being said, I didn’t want to leave my room. Looking like this, I didn’t know what to expect from my family, especially Tenta. Even if I didn’t care about that, I didn’t want to present myself to my family half dressed, that’d just be wrong.

Mustering up the little courage I had, I reached for the doorknob and silently opened the door to my room. I felt my ears twitch at the sound of the door creaking on its hinges, and I jumped from just how  _ loud _ that noise was. Was it already that loud, or did my new hearing make it more acute? I didn’t dwell on it long, choosing to quickly shuffle over to the guest room, where Tenta’s clothes were kept.

I managed to slowly put on a purple hoodie and some black shorts, but left my feet uncovered because I didn’t want to walk on smooth floors with my current walking ability  _ and _ have socks on. Just make my gravestone right now.

Looking back at my room once I re-entered the hallway, I remembered my glasses. Then I remembered that I have a big head and they wouldn’t fit either way. Great, I have to live with being nearsighted for now.

I steadily made my way to the stairs, and looked down at them with wide eyes. There’s no way I’d be able to get all the way down there and live. I contemplated living upstairs for the rest of my life when I figured I could slowly butt-scoot my way down there. It may have shattered my dignity but at least I’d be able to live for another day.

After some minutes of pure embarrassment, I managed to make it to the bottom of the stairs with a burning ass. I saw Salt napping beside Pepper by the couch, and I let a small smile touch my lips. Then I frowned, remembering that I’d have to eventually encounter Tenta and my family and had  _ no  _ idea how it would go.

The smell of bacon and eggs made my stomach jump start, a low growl coming from it as a warning I should get food soon. I sighed, slowly standing up and making my way to the kitchen, being careful not to trip. I stumbled a couple times on the way there, but I was getting the hang of it. I think.

I peeked in through the doorway, spotting the three others sitting and chatting at the table with plates in front of them, all about to dig in. Well, two of them, Tenta was already wolfing the bacon down like a pig. I slowly stepped in and began to say something, but tripped over nothing and fell to the floor painfully and loudly.

I could hear the chatter go to silence and a gasp of shock. I wheezed in pain and shakily stood back to my feet, blinking away the stinging tears in my eyes. My large golden eyes scanned the scene in front of me, my sight still blurry but surprisingly much sharper than before.

All I really saw were two dark brown blurry messes and one tan one rapidly eating the bacon, but I heard the sound of a fork clattering down onto the dining table, most likely dropped by Terrell. He could be a little dramatic when startled. I saw the tan blurry mess slowly hop down from a chair (it might’ve been a chair) and walk right in front of me. Would you look at that, it’s Tenta.

“W-William? Is that you?” I heard Terrell ask me, but I couldn’t determine which blurry blob was him.

Tenta tilted his head in slight curiosity, his lime green eyes studying my form before lifting a finger and poking my cheek, “Will-ee? I-Is you?”

I grunted in irritation and shoved his finger from my face,  **_“_ ** **Please don’t touch my face, I spent fifteen years getting it this perfect.”**

He jumped and stepped back with a startled look in his wide eyes,  **“You can speak Inktonian? But you’re** Will-ee **, you can’t speak Inktonian, you only speak** English. **”**

I tilted my head, confused and alarmed,  **“The hell do you mean I’m speaking Inktonian? Is that what your language is called? Really original. But no, I’m speaking clean** English  **right now, I’m not speaking Inktonian.”**

Tenta chuckled and rolled his eyes,  **“Yeah, sure, and I’m a sea shrimp alien who’s come to invade this planet with a maraca and a bean bag. Sure. How else are you communicating with me, then?”**

I defensively shrugged my shoulders,  **“I dunno! Maybe some sort of government agent came in and lodged a translation device into my brain and my form is only a hologram…?”**

The pink inkling stared blankly at me,  **“...What?”**

I threw my hands up into the air,  **“Fuck it! I’m going back to bed, I’m probably having a really strange lucid dream right now.** Alyssa, Terrell,  **don’t wake me, even if the world is ending.”**

I turned to leave the dining room, and on my way out the door I accidentally misstepped and fell to the hard floor. Wheezing softly, I inched my way back to my knees and moved to start crawling out the kitchen instead, but I felt someone scoop me off the ground.

“OH MY GOD, WILL!! Man, you look so much better than you did when you were human!” I heard Alyssa yell into my ear, quickly agitating me as I was hefted up by my stomach with her surprisingly strong arms. Well, not surprising. She’s beaten me in arm wrestling plenty of times.

She looked down at me with her brown eyes sparkling with delight, “Your eyes are golden too! I don’t think that’s a selection in the game, so you must be pretty unique! Nice, you even have one of the newer hairstyles! I’d be hella jealous of you if it weren’t for the fact that you can’t wear your glasses now.”

**“Yeah, I figured. I’m fucking blind.”** I murmured under my breath bitterly. I struggled in her grip for a moment, but she kept her hold tight. I grew from agitated to upset, physically trying to force her arms apart to let me go, since apparently she’s forgotten about the concept of personal space.

When that didn’t work, I looked over at Tenta with pleading eyes,  **“** Tentaaaaaaa,  **please help meeeee.”**

Tenta grinned at me and walked out of the kitchen smugly,  **“Hmm…...** **_Naaaaaaaah.”_ **

**_“Fuck you!”_ ** I screeched after him, but he was already in the living room, probably playing with Salt. He must have a thing for cats, which makes me bet he was team cat in that one splatfest. No wonder he was such a dick, he’s a cat lover.

I whimpered in Alyssa’s hold, wanting no more than to be let go, “Terrell!” I yelled at the other brown blob, who’s been quiet the whole time.  **“** Terrell! **_Please get her to let go of me!”_ **

Terrell stood up from his seat, “William, I can’t understand what you’re saying but I know what you want. Alyssa, set him down on the ground,” he instructed her,  _ “Gently,” _ he emphasized.

With a sigh of disappointment under her breath, I was let down to the ground at last, my asshole sister trudging out of the kitchen and up to her room. I went to kneel down and kiss the cold dining room floor. Then I was picked up again. Great.

Terrell held me up bridal style, “Will, I know you’re not into being carried, but I know that you’re  probably having a hard time walking right now with this...new body. You should take things slow and let me help you a little. I don’t mind, you’re very light in this form.”

I huffed and kicked my legs angrily,  **“For fucks sake- Fine! Just to not get scrapes on my goddamn arms and knees.”** The skin on my knees already started to sting a little bit.

Terrell couldn’t understand me, but he knew I was admitting bitter defeat, “Don’t be grumpy about it, at least I’m not letting you injure yourself from falling.” He set me down on one of the chairs and fixed a plate of food for me, placing it in front of me on the table. He held out a fork to me and I took it with a hesitant hand.

I looked over the food on my plate. Eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, the full breakfast bunch. I eyed the bacon and sausage in particular, oddly more interested in the meat than the other two items. Which was strange because pancakes were the  _ shit _ . I awkwardly raised the fork in my hand and jabbed one of the sausages, clumsily twisting my wrist to take it off the plate and jamming it into my mouth.

I almost melted at the taste of the sausage in my mouth. It was so much better than I remembered it being before. I greedily ditched the fork and used my hands to shovel the rest of the food on my plate into my mouth. Chewing felt weird, since my teeth weren’t teeth anymore, just a beak. I ran my tongue over one of my fangs, realizing just how  _ pointy  _ this thing was. No wonder Tenta’s teeth sunk through Terrell’s arm so easily, he could possibly make a dent in solid metal with one chomp!

I was too busy savoring the taste of the food (mostly the bacon and sausage) in my mouth to notice Terrell criticizing my greedy consumption of the food. He snatched my crumbless plate right from under my nose, though I didn’t care.

He rolled his eyes and set my plate on the counter, “God, Will, you’re eating like a one year old infant.”

I maturely stuck my tongue out in reply. Amused, Terrell grabbed a wet rag and scrubbed at my face, to which I protested greatly.

“You have bacon crumbs everywhere, Will. Next time, could you not be such a messy eater?” He said as he cleaned off my face. Then he moved to my hands and I resisted the urge to bite him. I hate it when he gets into parent mode on us, it’s embarrassing. Sure, Alyssa and I bicker like two five year olds, but we can still take care of ourselves. Mostly.

As soon as he was done I hopped off the chair and darted to the living room. I tried to anyway, but I unfortunately forgot that I can’t walk well in this form, and tripped yet again. I wheezed and shakily stood back up to my feet, getting sick of feeling my knees scraping against the floor. I saw Terrell step out in front of me, holding out a hand with a smile, offering to help guide me to the living room and not risk another painful tumble. Face flushing in embarrassment, I reluctantly took his hand and let him lead me into the living room, occasionally tripping up on my feet.

Once in the room, I spotted Tenta on the couch with Salt in his lap, watching TV. The sight was funny because he could barely understand English and the TV was playing a documentary on elephants. He doesn’t even know what elephants  _ are _ ….At least, I think they were elephants. My sight was still fucked up given I didn’t have my glasses.

I slowly stepped my way over to them, Terrell no longer with me since he went back to the kitchen, and greeted a curious Pepper on the way there. She sniffed my clothes and then my hand, getting an idea of who I was. She tilted her head and huffed through her nose, then walked over to Tenta and Salt, poking Salt with her snout and wagging her tail. The kitten mewled and hopped from Tenta’s lap, joining Pepper on whatever adventure they were off to. Tenta briefly looked disappointed at Salt’s departure, but then noticed me staring at him.

**“Hi.”** I said in ‘Inktonian’, plain and simple. I made my way to the couch and climbed upon it, the abnormal proportions of the inkling body making me fumble for a moment, but I eventually got myself seated right next to Tenta. He looked at me with a confused expression, before looking back at the TV.

**“So, what are those things? They look strange, with their giant noodle noses.”** He commented on the documentary, pointing at one of the baby elephants that was playing in the water. I think. All I really saw was a big mass of grey with some blue.

I squinted slightly at the blurry display on the TV, another cruel reminder that I could no longer wear my glasses,  **“Those are elephants. They’re big and can toot those ‘giant noodle noses’. I think they’re our biggest land mammal.”**

Tenta’s pink eyebrows rose slightly,  **“Those are elephants? Also, land mammal? What’s your biggest sea mammal, then?”**

I hummed,  **“I think they’re whales? Wait, hang on, how do you not know what elephants are?”**

Tenta glanced at me from the TV screen and shrugged,  **“Most of the land mammals back at my home are dead.”**

I laughed and laid against the couch cushion,  **“Dude, holy shit. Why are they dead?”**

Tenta tilted his head in thought, **“Some flood killed them all. We’re finding skeletons everywhere, mostly of these monkey looking things that look similar to your family. We’ve found at least two billion of them already.”**

I coughed, trying to hide my knowing smile. The pink inkling gave me a weird look and I just grinned innocently in return.

**“...Y’know, I’ve realized something.”** I spoke up, distracting Tenta once more from the documentary.

**“Eh?”**

**“Your language only has specific words, some that don’t exist in** English.  **Like that! The word** ‘English’  **doesn’t exist in your tongue.”**

Tenta slouched against the armrest of the couch and turned to me, **“I mean, we’ve never heard of that word before, so of course we wouldn’t have a word for it.”**

I was intrigued, **“So there’s specific** English **words that don’t exist in Inktonian…”**

Tenta looked at me with a bored expression,  **“Uh-huh.”**

I focused,  **“Bean. Apple. Corn. Tree. Dog. Lotion.”**

**“What the hell are you doing?”**

**“Trying to find a word in Inktonian that doesn’t have an** English  **translation.”**

Tenta narrowed his eyes and sat up, **“...Saying random words in Inktonian won’t help you find a word in** English **that doesn’t exist in my language.”**

**“I can** **_try!”_ **

After a second of glaring at each other, I glanced off to the side and began fiddling with my ponytail, my tentacles having felt like they’ve been squeezed aggressively since I woke up. Why could I feel my tentacles? Why is that a thing?

**“Well, seeing as how I can say words that only exist in** English **like names, I wanted to check and see if it worked with other words too.”**

Tenta rolled his eyes and slouched against the couch once again,  **“Smart.”**

**“I happen to think it’s a genius idea, thank you very much. It’s strange, though. I’m unable to speak** English **but I can understand it clearly.”**

**“How can you just stop being able to speak your native language in one day?”**

I looked at Tenta with an unamused expression,  **“I’m a human that** **_maaagically_ ** **turned into an inkling overnight for no real apparent reason, and you’re asking me how I can’t speak my native language of all things.”**

Tenta just grinned awkwardly. What an intelligent conversation.

I then gasped in delight despite the ache in my arms from being lifted over my head for so long. For fucks sake, why can’t I undo a simple ponytail? My tentacles are dying.

**“Oh wait, holy shit. I’m no longer a human. Dude! I’m one of the cutest beings on this planet, I could make people become my** **_slaves!_ ** **People would be forced to do my bidding!”**

Tenta laughed and slouched back against the couch once more,  **“You don’t know the half of it! Shrimps and sea anemones back at home are always the ones who fell for inklings who would beg for shit. Sea urchins and sharks are the hardest to convince, and jellyfish are our rivals.** **_Never_ ** **try looking cute with the shopkeepers, though, they know all of the tricks.”**

I grinned, successfully undoing the ponytail my tentacles were stuck in, the two of them flopping to the sides of my head. I briefly sighed in relief and shivered when they made contact with my shoulders, realizing that they weren’t like human hair at all. Plus I could feel through them, so there was that. I also noticed how slimy they felt, though there was no residue on my hands when I pulled them away. Everything about inklings was so  _ odd _ .

**“Those are your tentacles. Yes, I know. It was a very strange experience for me when I first discovered them too.”** I never really thought about how much of a snarky piece of shit Tenta actually could be until now.

**“Excuse me for turning into an inkling overnight and not knowing a single thing about my biology!”** I retorted, stubbornly tying my tentacles back into their ponytail a little looser. At least, I tried to, but they kept slipping from my fingers.

Tenta shrugged and started crawling along the couch, making his way behind me and starting to fiddle with my tentacles. **“Fair. Also, you gotta keep your tentacles firm in your hands, like this,”** he said, gripping my tentacles and easily tying them back up into a rather loose ponytail. I still couldn’t get over the fact that I could feel through the tentacles. Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to be able to feel through your hair? Well, now I know the answer and **_I do not like it._**

**“You tied them up too loose! They feel like they’re gonna fall out.”** I whined, feeling tempted to touch my tentacles but decided against it. They felt like they could fall out from the slightest touch.

Tenta shook his head, **“Trust me, you’ll want those tentacles of yours to be loose like that, it’s not healthy to keep them tied up too tight or you’ll cut off circulation of blood and ink.”**

**“Oh.”**

We had a moment of silence, the two of us watching the elephant documentary on the TV. Well, one of us, I couldn’t see it. The elephants were doing elephant things, tooting their ‘noodle noses’ and walking around in a herd. I heard Tenta groan next to me, clearly sounding bored. We both sat in even more excruciating silence as the documentary moved on to zebras.

**“I’m surprised you’re not a little more freaked out about this. Then again, I’m not really either.”** Tenta murmured with a small yawn, breaking the silence. He shuffled in his seat and laid his head back against the cushion in boredom once more, watching the tv with half-lidded eyes.

I shrugged, scratching behind my pointed ear,  **“I spent all of my freak-out energy when you flew in through our television. I’m neutral at this point in all honesty.”**

Tenta turned to look at me with wide eyes, his large pupils practically staring into my soul,  **“I flew in through your television? Did I actually do that?”**

**“Yeah, you were screaming as you came in too. Your gun hit me on the nose and busted it open so now I have a scar riiiight here,”** I explained, pointing to the fading scar on my nose. It’s weird to think that I got it because a plastic cartoon gun flew at me at what felt like 60 miles an hour.

Tenta rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly,  **“Oops, sorry about that. But my gun? You guys had it and didn’t tell me? Where is it? Can I have it back?”**

**“Well, when it landed on the floor there was a pretty big dent in it, so I really doubt it would be much use to you anymore. We still have it, we just took it and locked it away because we didn’t want you to try and shoot us with it or anything.”**

The pink inkling hummed in understanding.

I couldn’t help but ask a question for curiosity, **“So...what was the deal with you having all those injuries? They looked like they really fuckin’ hurt.”**

**“Injuries?”**

I nodded and took Tenta’s arm, tracing my finger around one of the scars around his wrist,  **“These ones. How did you get these? The three of us didn’t know exactly what happened to you when you flew in. You looked pretty fucked up, though.”**

The other inkling was silent, studying the scarred and bumpy skin on his wrist. He then pulled back his leg and rolled down his sock, looking at the scars on his ankles too.

**“I...I got captured by bad guys.** **_Reaaaaally_ ** **bad guys.”**

By bad guys he must’ve meant the Octarians, but I didn’t want to go through the whole “character is told that they’re from a video game” situation just yet, so I played dumb.

**“They must’ve done a number on you, there were wounds all around your wrists and ankles. My sister thought that there might’ve been cuffs on you that caused them, based on how they went all around your arms and legs.”**

Tenta didn’t say anything, just giving a small hum in reply as he rubbed the scar with his thumb.

“ **You were pretty banged up when you came in, what happened?** ” I asked him, slightly tilting my head in curiosity. 

Tenta just shook his head with a deep frown, “ **I don’t wanna talk about it.** ”

I shrugged once more, “ **Fine. Doesn’t mean I won’t try to wrestle the answer out of you, though.** ”

The pink inkling rolled his eyes and stood up off the couch, heading for the stairs, “ **Sure, good luck with that, dude. I’d like to see you give it your best shot.** ”

**“Y’know, I think I liked the quiet and fewer words** Tenta **better. It was much nicer hearing your broken** English **than this.”**

**“Well, I saw a missing poster with his face on it, maybe you can find him if you give the number on it a call.”**

I narrowed my eyes,  **“...What’s the number?”**

The other inkling turned back to me, halfway up the stairs. He had a blank look on his face as he looked straight into my golden eyes.

**“Nya.”**

**_“What?”_ **

**“Nyan of your business.”**

I stared at him in utter disbelief and watched as he made his way up the staircase. What’s wrong with me being curious about what happened to him? What an asshole. Tenta cackled too much like my sister as he made his way up the staircase and I was half tempted to run after him and kick his ass before I remembered that my walking ability was as good as nonexistent.

This inkling is not going to be fun to live with.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed! Please leave your feedback and tell me what you think! I'm eager to hear some responses!!!


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